News in Shoplife

Borgen, The Killing, The Bridge. We have been hitching a ride on the whole Danish thing. But shed any notions of bleak dockyards, creepy killers and slightly matted jumpers, we were in a very different, fashiony, cool and colourful Copenhagen. Day 1: Gallery Fashion Show and we discover a super gorgeous knitwear brand and have a lovely appointment with Stella Nova in their beautiful showroom. Day 2: New homeware show in old cattle market and we're very excited about brand spanking new Scandi things about to be delivered to sunny Winchester. And then much wandering about in the Meat Packing district. Go to Mother for pizza (very good). Visit vintage shop Affaer (very good but they don't take cards). 

Our much missed VM extraordinaire Laura was back in town last Friday. Her visit just happended to coincide with a window change so we put her to work. Cue lots of big laughs, much tea drinking and one beautifully decked out festive window.

Tis a special day indeed and one of our most cherished traditions (besides morning coffee and afternoon tea); the hanging of our beautiful swag by Victoria's dad completes our festive makeover and marks the start of Christmas proper. 

So here we are, unveiling phase two of our online journey. The objective was simple; let the world know just how lovely our little corner of the world wide web is. And as we like to do in such situations, we turned to our friends for a little help. Victoria’s Art Director sister Sandy and Photographer Sara Morris, being the obvious choice here for injecting some creative magic. With Sandy styling and Sara behind the lens, the pair often work together for fun, and that’s exactly what they had with a basket full of Hambledon goods.

Affectionately entitled ‘Yogi Falls in Love’, ‘Suicidal Moose’ and ‘Mr Moustachio’, you can see our series of online ads in action on some of our favourite websites – Miss Moss, 91 Magazine and Sweet Paul Magazine. And for more of Sandy & Sara’s fabulous work, check out Things&People and Sara Morris Photography.

No we don't do things by half a whisker. This month we will be mostly and wholeheartedly embracing all things tash-tastic! From doormats to drinking straws, 10% of all sales of moustache related goods go to the Movember Foundation.

This is what happens when you take stock of a large number of vintage French discothèque posters (courtesy of our friend Sharon from Old Albion) and develop a new obsession with colour blocking. Welcome to Autumn / Winter 2012 at The Hambledon.

Forget the mermaid and Hans Christian Anderson, Copenhagen is all about the Tivoli Gardens, lemonade and fashion. Lucy, Rob and Victoria show us their snaps from their Danish mini break (mange tak to the lovely Sarah at Grenson and the team at Gallery). Beautiful runway shows from Baum und Pferdgarten and Peter Jensen aside, we were loving super cool Danish women (all models of health and beauty, all riding sit up and beg bikes and all wearing ankle boots, tunics and something sparkly); we were loving Cafe Norden's incredible fresh mint lemonade, served in an extra large jam jar; and we were love, love, loving the 19th century world of delight that is the Tivoli Gardens. No words to express the gorgeousness that is a surfeit of coloured light bulbs and excessive chinoiserie.

We're feeling a theme here. From top to toe.

If you've popped in over the last week and wondered what exactly the impressive collection of corgis on the counter-back would amount to, then wonder no more. The corgis have been leashed up in national colours and put on parade in our right royal window display. And as expected, they are well and truly stealing the show. Or rather, one royal impostor is!

It's one of the biggest dates in the menswear calendar so it was off to Florence once again for our intrepid menswear buyers. They got lost, they discovered lovely new things, they fell in love with wool and more wool, they got excited at Engineered Garments and Post Overalls, they got lost again, ate rabbit gnocchi and spent way too much time in the WP store.