We’re not entirely proud of being seduced by the new shops in the dystopian juggernaut that is ‘Elephant Park’, but in our defense some very interesting and totally independent shops and restaurants have been opening up there such as pizza joint ‘400 Rabbits’ and video game pub ‘4 Quarters’. The latest kid on the block is ‘Elephant Stores’ which houses a craft/gift shop, a bike repair shop, an antiques market and (keep up) an outlet of Walworth dining staple ‘Louie Louie’. So if you woke up this morning thinking ‘wow I really need to get my hand brake fixed while shopping for a handmade lampshade and a refurbished chair while also eating a vegan mushroom toastie’ then you are in LUCK!
The SoLo Craft Fair is a South London collective of artists and creatives who pitch together through their website, workshops, popups, and now promote their makes through the bricks and mortar shop at Elephant Stores. The 60 small businesses have their work shown on rotation and during our journey we saw affordable jewellery, handbags, baskets, cards, scarves, bath salts, prints and T-shirts. The staff on hand are usually creators themselves and more than happy to give you advice. If you are the crafty type yourself you can even apply to sell your wares via SoLo by enquring here.
Vintage Matters is a small company based in Camberwell (so, close enough) who specialise in vintage homeware, typography, architectural salvage and, by looking around the place, a slight obsession with tables and chairs. So much so that you can walk away with the very chair you sat upon to eat that vegan toastie. Most of the accessories around the Elephant store, from giant letters and numbers to mirrors and seltzer bottles, are available to take away on the day or just to admire. So think of it as a kind of ‘try before you buy’ exercise.
While not exactly independent, Fix Your Cycle is a small chain who both repair problems with your bike and also offer regular bike servicing at different tiers. You can do tasks as simple as pumping up your tyres and getting friendly advice to solving major, oily breakdowns. They even offer an ebike hire scheme. Of particular interest to us is their social enterprise ‘Recycle Your Cycle’ scheme. Working with HM Prison Service, they refurbish abandoned bikes for charity and this work is undertaken by prisoners at seven prisons, giving them valuable skills once they are released, and the bikes are then sold for charity. This aspect gave us so many thumbs up we nearly poked our eyes out.
We will review Louie Louie’s offshoot ‘Little Louie’ in a separate post in a few days you lucky devils.
