AM Christmas Gift Guide & Inspiration.
A Christmas gift guide for shopping small businesses.
This Christmas, give the gift of discovery by sharing small makers and artisans with your family and friends. Step away from the obvious choices and look beyond the Amazon basket. It is time we big up the small brands and encourage a more sustainable Christmas.
It is easy at this time of year to get caught up in the Black Friday sales as the promo is all around us. I wanted to put together a collection of carefully chosen artisan products, useful and beautiful, for the home, body and living as ideas for Christmas gifting.
I have always loved Jo Gordon's knitwear. As many of you know, my love of knitted garments runs deep, and Jo is a wonderful Scottish knitwear designer. Years ago, I found myself at a fair opposite Jo, suddenly from seeing her work in the pages of Vogue to standing in front of me, her knitwear was beautiful, and my love affair with it was cemented from that moment.
This book is beautiful, I received it for my birthday this year from lovely friends. It has bought me so much joy I felt I had to share it with you all. The Art of Repair, published by Short Books, is a collection of stories, tips and fragments of history exploring the humble act of textile repair. The apron I wear every day in the studio has become a piece of art, thanks to the beautiful darning of my friend Deidre Nelson and this book has inspired me to give it a go myself. I hope you enjoy giving this book as much as I did receiving it.
The link takes you to the Bookshop.org which is an online bookshop with a mission to financially support local, independent bookshops.
I take so much inspiration from flowers and love nothing more than to have freshly cut blooms from the garden on the dinner table. The Pyrus Flower Bowl combines hand-thrown ceramic and the magic of a flower pin to hold the elegant stems in place creating a new artistic installation every time.
Dook is a small, artisanal company based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Their soap collection is a lovely affordable gift for friends and family. Each batch is mixed and poured by hand, resulting in distinctive, high-quality hand and body soap. They also smell delicious.
Wolfram's work is incredible and gets even more distinctive with age. I have one of his bags which is now five years old, and as I use it every day it is building a beautiful patina. The oak peg of the planter sits flush to the wall suspending the plant by a leather strap to add a fresh contemporary look to any home.
After two years of uncertainty for small businesses, many got lost to the forced closures and general lockdown. Those still clinging on, and indeed flourishing, deserve our support. They have worked hard, sometimes diversified, to still be here two years down the line, so this Christmas, why not shop small. If you have a small business and are reading this, please drop me a message on Instagram and Thursday and Friday this week I will share your business in support of shopping small.
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