Wow. It’s already been a whole year since I set out to tell the stories of original, one-off independent shops from around the world. Thanks to each and every one of you for reading the blog a...
Unicorn. 5135 Boulevard St. Laurent, Montréal, Québec. +1 (514) 544-2828 Once upon a time, people designed and made stuff with their own hands. Merchants sold the work of artisans in their local sh...
Cocoa Locale. 4807 Avenue du Parc, Montréal, Québec. +1 (514) 271-7162 Cocoa Locale is no cupcake shop. It’s not a bakery that churns things out for other businesses. Nor is it a cafe. It...
El Titan de Bronze, 1071 SW 8th Street, Miami 33130 I’d never been to Miami’s ‘Little Havana’ before, sticking instead to the art deco strip of South Beach and its glitzy, mostly bi...
Shakespeare and Company. 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 75005 Paris Let me tell you a story. A perfectly circular one, shaped by fate. There once was an American woman called Sylvia Beach. She was studyin...
Petersham Nurseries, Church Lane, off Petersham Road, Richmond, TW10 7AG. Glamorous and garden. Not words that normally go together. But Petersham Nurseries, a place “garden centre” does...
Petersham Nurseries, Church Lane, off Petersham Road, Richmond, TW10 7AG. It took me a long time to find out about Petersham Nurseries. Perhaps because it is relatively new? Or because it’s l...
Oxford Comma, 247 Iffley Road, Oxford, OX4 1SJ. And find Badaude’s blog here. Sally and David Emery do. This month they opened a design shop on an up-and-coming corner of Oxford’s Iffle...
Autour du Bain, 12 Rue St-Joseph, 1227 Carouge, Genève I’ll admit it. Geneva was never my favourite city to visit. My clients were based in there when I worked in advertising, and years of bu...
Altmann & Kühne, Innere Stadt, Am Graben 30, 1010 Wien It’s been 12 years since I visited Vienna. I was young, solo, relatively untravelled, proudly sporting a Canadian flag on my backpack...
Fortnum & Mason, 181 Piccadilly, London W1A 1ER If a single shop can embody a country, its history and in some ways its very spirit, Fortnum & Mason is it. A very English company with a very...
I’m a facebook-phobe, a contributor to the comments pages of lots of blogs and online newspapers under the cowardly name of ‘anonymous’ (I’m getting over that, recently) and y...
Tobias and the Angel, 68 White Hart Lane, Chiswick, London, SW13 0PZ (…continued from last week’s post) At the time of its opening 23 years ago, Tobias and the Angel was smaller than it i...
Tobias and the Angel, 68 White Hart Lane, Chiswick, London SW13 0PZ When I interviewed Angel Hughes, owner of the eponymous shop, I forgot to ask her a question. Visiting her shop of 23 years in Chi...
One rainy weekend, years ago, I was visiting Barcelona for work. Undeterred by the rain, I wanted to shop. I ventured out of my hotel and headed for the main shopping areas suggested by the concierg...
Labour and Wait, 18 Cheshire Street, London E2 6EH Rachel Wythe-Moran and Simon Watkins make a striking pair. They are stylish, but unpretentious; cool without being flashy; empassioned but restraine...
Ah, the many inspiring independent shops of Paris that await me… Here are just a few of the Parisian shops I intend to feature one day on UB, please do leave a comment below to suggest more! As...
Creative and cool Berlin is an oasis of independent shops. A few I would like to feature on UB include: The Corner. Lifestyle emporium, Franzosische Strasse 40 Emma & Co. Children, Niebuhrstras...
One day soon I will have the chance to revisit Barcelona and discover its best unique boutiques, like: Casa Gispert. Food, Carrer Sombrerers 23 Cereria Subira. Candles, Baixada de Llibreteria 7 Herbo...
At the moment UB is limited to Europe, but soon I plan to add some wonderful independent shops in North America to the mix. If you have any ideas for shops to feature in the US or Canada, please do ...
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