What’s the surprise? JW Anderson’s retail redux
It might be my age and the time of year (nesting is calling!) but I’m a bit more excited for fashion’s lifestyle news than adding more clothes to my wardrobe. (Yes, really!)
This week sees the newly refurbed JW Anderson store in Brewer Street, overflowing beautifully merchandised with Jonathan Anderson’s mix of knitwear, loafer bags, Wedgwood Jasperware and Mackintosh oak stools. Later in the year we’ll see his vision for a new store in Pimlico Road (home of spendy antique shops and World of Interior-style stores).
Basically, I can’t wait.
Let’s not forget, Jonathan Anderson started his fashion career learning the art of visual merchandising (aka retail ‘world building’) at the knee of Prada sidekick Manuela Pavesi. So he knows how to pull an enticing store vision together.
A quick whistlestop visit of the Soho store gave an inkling of what one might expect. Firstly, the store can only accommodate a few customers at a time, so be prepared to wait a few minutes. (And no photos please.) Next, delight yourself with the mix of idiosyncratic homewares alongside the tweed tailoring and fairisle pig jumpers.
Some pieces are very desirable and expensive (the £990 limited edition Wedgwood cup and saucer sets, a once-aborted collaboration with Lucie Rie that is only now seeing the light of day, with proceeds going to support the new Lucie Rie x Hans Coper foundation). But there are also more accessible lifestyle pieces to scratch the craft itch, such as Murano glass pieces and Nicholas Mosse stripy mugs. And of course, for the entry-level fashion diehards there’s plenty of choice in leather padlock charms and other knick knacks.
Fashion retail thrives on surprise and the surprise here is that the home stuff is done so well. As a craft head, Anderson hasn’t just pulled in the generic homesy product you can buy anywhere. This feels genuinely hand selected, down to the vintage gardening implements that seem random, yet make sense in his town-meets-country context.
It reminds me a little of the much-missed Thomas’s Café, the fabulous eatery appended to Christopher Bailey’s Burberry flagship, which sold all-British fare on fantastically crafted British-made plates and bowls. It was a sensorial adventure simply enjoying a buttered teacake there, while also compelling you to snap up a check scarf or trench on the way out.
In other fashion-lifestyle news, is there a Margaret Howell x Kettle’s Yard collab in the works? My spies say it’s possible and I’m totally down with manifesting that idea. Watch this space…
WORDS: Disneyrollergirl / Navaz Batliwalla
IMAGES: JW Anderson Brewer Street, London W1 (sorry for the piss poor quality but they’re taken guerilla-style on the hoof!)
NOTE: Most images are digitally enhanced. Some posts use affiliate links and PR samples. Please read my privacy and cookies policy here
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