I’ve just finished playing with props again, this time for Topping Books, a very special independent bookshop here in Bath. The lovely people at Topping’s ask me to decorate their windows periodically. Last time was in January for the launch of food and travel quarterly, Cereal magazine.
The things hanging down from the ceiling were little strands of paper notebooks, joined together on my sewing machine. It’s hard to see, but there is also an old stepladder: a family heirloom which my husband’s grandmother climbed to access those hard-to-reach shelves in her Dorset off-licence, circa 1930. And I added a lovely old robin’s-egg blue typewriter (this particular model is a pioneering 1949 slimline design, still favoured by the likes of Will Self and Leonard Cohen) and several pine cones. Very orderly and restrained, isn’t it? I didn’t want to overwhelm the pared-down Scandi styling of the magazine. Volume 2 of Cereal is just out, by the way.
This time, the bookshop needed something punchier for Bath in Fashion week, an annual event which is fast gaining a reputation amongst people who know about such things. This year it runs from 13th-21st April. Topping’s will be hosting two events to coincide: one with Sir Roy Strong on Tuesday 16th April, another with Kaffe Fassett on Thursday 18th April. My brief was to create an eye-catching display to flag up these events; the bookshop is on the A4 route through Bath and probably gets more attention from people in their cars than on foot. So, you have to work hard to grab attention.
First, I set to with my paintbrush and some old sewing boxes like this rather sad one; it’s a fabulous mid-twentieth century shape, but the varnish had been wrecked by water damage before I got it, so it was ripe for a makeover.
Here it is with a lick of paint.
I also painted a tiny chest of drawers bought new about ten years ago, the perfect thing for buttons, bits and bobs. And I played with some buckram (the white stiff stuff you make tie-backs with, or don’t make tie-backs with, in my case). I have a little thing about Mary Norton’s The Borrowers and thought that a giant classic Dean tape-measure would be A Good Idea. Never mind that I only painted up to the 12″ mark; most of the measure is coiled, so nobody will ever know. Instead of ‘Dean’ I painted ‘Bath’, and where ‘Made in England’ would have been, I put ‘Bath in Fashion’. Pretty subtle. Yeah, I guess nobody will clock that from their cars.
I borrowed an old French mannequin, which I felt compelled to Christen ‘Claudette’, and draped the giant tape-measure around her shoulders.
Several hours, some giant prop buttons, and many metres of orange fabric later, here’s the window.
Judging by my display, the event might well be called ‘Bath in Haberdashery’, but not to worry. Close enough for rock ‘n’ roll. Does it say ‘fashion’, however tangentially, to you? You can be scrupulously honest. My job is to catch the eye, and I hope that the bright colours and sewing props do that. Anyway, if you’re passing the Paragon at the end of George Street in Bath, or sitting in traffic at the lights, look out for it and let me know what you think. Better still, come to one of the bookshop events! Events are invariably delightful, warm and welcoming occasions at Topping’s, particularly with such colourful guests.
Here’s the entire shop front.
PS This was actually attempt #2. I had a go at the windows on Sunday and made an incredible vintage-fabric mish-mash of them both. If you walked past late Sunday or early Monday and wondered what on earth was going on in the mind of the window-dresser, I was just having an off day. And trying to be über-thrifty by using only what I had. Big mistake. But this is how we learn.
