We’ve been big fans of Solo Craft Fair since they opened in Elephant Stores (in Elephant Park) a few years ago, and were here to tell you about an upcoming yummy event. In case you don’t know, Solo is a collective of 60 mostly female owned small businesses selling all sorts of things you don’t really need but must have, from earrings to gift cards to candles.
On 31 March, Solo will be having another instalment of their Blind Date With a Book event. This got us very excited as many of us in the office have vast experience of blind dates (and on a number of those we wish we’d been blind ourselves) However, when we reached out to SoLo they explained that there is no actual dating involved. What it cleverly entails is selecting a wrapped up book with written clues about the book on the wrapping, and you select based on your moods. One might contain a £10 voucher. You then take the book away and go on dates with it by reading it. A lot cheaper than dating an actual human with no worries about drunken date photos popping up on Instagram.
As dating can be emotionally and physically draining, you could do a lot worse than grab a toastie or hot drink at Little Louie, also in Elephant Stores. And while you’re there why not pick up a a French school desk or a giant reclaimed letter ‘A’?
Before we commence with our run down of how we can treat people we love, lets think about all the Greater Kenningtonians out there who are struggling with the basics. If you would like to help them but aren’t really sure how, the Vauxhall Foodbank is a good place to start. You can either donate money, volunteer, or donate food directly at Tesco Kennington Lane or Sainsburys Nine Elms.
If you’re anything like us, you’d rather have a pencil crammed into your ear canal than face the throngs of Oxford/Regent Streets right now. And if you like to hold objects before you buy them you can do this in our very own manor, and we hope you find our little guide useful.
FOOD
Italo Vauxhall and Mimi’s Deli both have a range of Italian foodie gift ideas including wines, beers, spices, panettone (or as we call it ‘stale cake’), oils, cheeses and even posh sauces. Mimi’s has also turned the former seating area into a kind of pop up Christmas shop in the back, not visible from the road.
Mercato Metropolitano has all of the Italian fare outlined above and also feature some Italian themed hampers and they’re also selling wreaths. They have wonderful meats and cheeses but if they sit under your tree for 10 days the smell might rather dampen your Christmas vibe. Don’t forget they have a new shop at 1 Walworth Road.
Ever thought about buying an edible Christmas gift our own beloved Oval Farmer’s Market? They stock many things that won’t perish under the tree such as chocolates and wine. You have one more Saturday before Christmas!
The Beefeater Gin Distillery has a lovely but totally deserted gift shop offering unusual, limited run gins and gin accessories. You can also buy a gift voucher to tour the distillery (we can confirm it’s great fun). Perfect for your loved one who likes a nice holiday tipple or who just has a drinking problem.
NON FOOD
Now, when you think Christmas shopping the first thing you say to yourself probably isn’t ‘ooh, lets go to the place behind Elephant Station where they keep the bins’. But, if you venture there you will discover a clutch of independent shops in Castle Square that used to exist in the shopping centre. Great for you younger folk looking for baseball caps, hoodies and clothes.
If you are in Elephant pop over to the new SoLo Craft Fair which is a collective of artists and creatives who now run a bricks and mortar shop. 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.
From the chains, cages and chew toys in the window, for many years we thought Hound Hut in Clapham Road was actually a bondage/S&M shop. However, it is your one stop shop for everything canine, even refrigerated dog food.
Next to the (not S&M) Hound Hut sits new kid on the block “Pretty Shiny Shop’ which swaggeringly exudes itself to be Greater Kennington’s Christmas Shop (steady) and they stock a range or cards, houseware items, Christmas tree goodies, and small pieces of jewellery.
Mary over at Windmill Flowers stocks not just flowers but also collectables and houseware accessories.
In addition to books, Vanilla Black also has some nice gift ideas such as cards and masks and also a few food items. We think VB secretly hates us but we’ve moved on with our lives and are plugging them anyway. And since you are over there, I Due Amici has some fine looking panettone hanging in their windows (no that isn’t a rude euphemism). And if at this very second you are thinking ‘what happened to Didi and Franc’. Well, we have no idea but try asking in VB.
As a second joyless year comes to a close, have you ever thought about the gift of comedy? Our local gold star comedy club Always be Comedy are doing E vouchers for their virtual and socially distanced and live events (the virtual being very surreal) at The Tommyfield. Recently we’ve seen Harry Hill, Al Murray, Sara Pascoe and more.
Most importantly, this has been yet another shitty year for almost all of us. So you have the Kennington Runoff seal of approval to treat yourself during the 2021 festive season!
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.
