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ISSUE 01

EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT 2026

OUR FAVOURITE SHOPS THE FACE - the sharpest of 60’s clothing. 25 D’Arblay Street W1F 8EJ.

KIOSK

Issue 01: 2026

10.

SHŌTENGAI

16.

LONDON’S BEST KIOSKS

20.

KIOSK ROUNDTABLE No.1: THE BAKERS

26.

THINGS WE LIKE

28.

YOU CAN’T PUT A PRIC£ ON THAT

30.

HOW TO LOSE YOUR MIND WORKING IN FOOD

38.

BEYOND THE STORE

42.

A SITE OF RITUAL

46.

NEW FACES

56.

52 TEXTS ABOUT THINGS

60.

KIOSK’S GUIDE TO SHEPHERD’S BUSH MARKET

64.

WE NEED INDY BUSINESSES & CREATIVES TO USE AI, HERE’S WHY

68.

KIOSK.WORLD

70.

MEET YOUR MAKER

76.

TATTOOS COULD SAVE THE HIGH STREET

82.

BREAKFAST WITH KIOSK: TERRI MERCIECA

90.

‘IT’S A VERY GOOD TIME TO BE AN INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER OF LITERARY FICTION’

96.

RETAIL THERAPY

FOUNDER’S LETTER James Bowthorpe Welcome to Kiosk magazine, a celebration of everything independent! Out twice a year in print, this is 100 pages of new writing, photography and illustration that platforms independent makers, doers and businesses of every size. It seems incredible, but London currently has no magazine that represents the independent businesses that make it such a great place to live, work and play. We are filling that gap.

We’re interested in the big picture (Christine Murray investigates social value in ‘You Can’t Put a Price On That’, p28) and the extremely niche (Caffs Not Cafes Isaac Rangaswami visits ‘London’s Best Kiosks’, p16). We like debate: is AI a transformative tool that can work for independents, if we get involved in its development (see researcher Flynn Devine’s ‘We Need Indy Businesses & Creatives to Use AI’, p64), or an existential threat to creatives everywhere (artist Babak Ganjei’s cri de coeur ‘Meet Your Maker’, p70)? YOU DECIDE.

We’re telling the stories behind the enterprises on high streets and back streets, in studios and sheds. We want you, our readers, to discover new ideas brought to life and old favourites revived We are a small business, too. Kiosk magazine is part of Kiosk.World, our platform for creating and sustained with love and effort. places that support micro and small businesses, We want to spotlight the communities and and both are a part of Applied Research Creative networks that are being built by our friends and Studio. We’re in our 10th year, we’re a B Corp and neighbours to support themselves and each other our mission is to create places that are better IRL. Kiosk is an excellent read for anyone that for people. likes cool stuff, good ideas and keeping tax revenue onshore. We are happy to partner with anyone who shares our love of micro and small independent We know it’s hard work to run a record shop businesses. This issue is supported, in part, by (Chris Waywell meets Dash The Henge Store’s Xero, the accounting software we use to run Chris and Tim for ‘A Site of Ritual’, p42) or things – Xero is the most loved accounting host a supper club (Hope Cunningham lays software in the UK, so we’re not alone*. If you’d it all out in ‘How to Lose Your Mind Working like 90% off Xero for six months, scan the code. in Food’, p30), and we want to know why and how it’s done. We covet beautiful objects and love collecting them (‘Things We Like’ p 26); we also want to know who is behind these treasures (‘New Faces’, p46). Terms Apply

We’re meeting people on the first leg of their hero’s journey (four new starters talk about turning a culinary obsession into a career for ‘Kiosk Roundtable: The Bakers’, p20), and those several years into changing the fundamentals of their industry (Happy Endings’ Terri Mercieca sits down for ‘Breakfast with Kiosk’, p78).

We’ve had a blast making this magazine and we hope you enjoy it. If you’d like to contribute to the next issue or work with us in another way, please get in touch at magazine@kiosk.world Until next time, James and the Kiosk team

*Independent, brand-blind survey of 12,160 small businesses, Aug 2024-Jul 2025

CONTRIBUTORS

ISAAC RANGASWAMI is a writer based in London, who runs the wildly popular Instagram account @caffs_not_cafes, celebrating the city’s oldest caffs, and the newsletter Wooden City where he writes mostly about London’s pubs, shops, restaurants and public spaces. Taking the title of the magazine as a starting point, Isaac writes about a selection of London’s curious kiosks for issue one.

BABAK GANJEI is a London-based visual artist, comic book writer, novelist, musician and radio presenter. Inspired by the music and comedy of the 1990s, Babak’s work is energetic, unpredictable and darkly funny. A Central Saint Martins graduate, Babak has continued to share his inner monologue through his art. His essay for Kiosk issue one dives deep into the big questions: why make art? When should you support your local high street? How do you choose a video for a Friday night on the sofa? His debut novel, On The Bus Without A Phone, is out now, published by Rough Trade Books. HOPE CUNNINGHAM is the founder and editor of chicken + bread magazine, where culinary creativity meets cultural celebration. Through captivating visuals and compelling stories, the magazine celebrates heritage and innovation within communities often overlooked in mainstream narratives. In Kiosk issue one, Hope breaks down what it takes to bring her ideas to life off the page for her first ever supper club, and considers what it means to welcome customers as guests to eat the food she prepares.

SAMME SNOW is a London-based artist and illustrator with a playful, curious and fun style, his detailed characters spark joy and connection. Samme specialises in open, accessible Colouring Workshops: creative sessions where people of all ages are invited to draw together. In this issue, he visits Shepherd’s Bush Market for ‘Geographies’, Kiosk’s guide to the best shopping and eating neighbourhoods in the capital.

TERRI MERCIECA is an accomplished dessert chef, artisan chocolatier and founder of Happy Endings – a proudly values-led desserts business who are fiercely committed to inclusivity and not afraid to shake things up. Kiosk meets Terri to talk about what it takes to create, build and lead a small business to victory and stay sane while doing it.

KIOSK MAGAZINE

KIOSK Editor Nadja Coyne Design and Art Direction iya studio Director, Matt Cottis Designer, Jake Bailey Designer, Harry Kitchin Designer, Daniela Parella Subeditor Alice Snape For Kiosk.World and a-r-c-s Founder James Bowthorpe Project Lead Clare Stentiford Kiosk N1C Lead Abigail Caitlin Ghent Markets Manager Jack Fittes Kiosk Greenford Quay Manager Karl Knarr Content Qozeem Lawal Place Lead Nick Vergara

09 For more information: KIOSK N1C Lower Stable St, N1C www.kioskn1c.com @kioskn1c KIOSK GQ Unit A, The Glassworks, UB6 www.kioskgq.com @kioskgq KIOSK SOHO D’Arblay Street, W1F www.kiosksoho.com @kiosksoho www.kiosk.world @kiosk.wrld Print Park Communications Primary Typefaces ABC Monument, ABC Dinamo Simon Mono, JP Haynie & Robert Janes Domaine, Klim Foundry Feroniapi, Velvetyne Type Foundry

With thanks to all our brilliant contributors and interviewees: Maddy Bobin Hope Cunningham Dan de Freitas @ Slow Tongues Flynn Devine Dr Flo Babak Ganjei Abigail Caitlin Ghent Emily Goulding Kevin Green Tim Harper Aaron Hettey Tatsuo Hino Chantelle Faith Kusi Qozeem Lawal Hai Lin Leung Michael Marriot Terri Mercieca Bryn Morgan-Hughes Christine Murray Chris OC Afua Ofori-Darko Sonny Owen Crystelle Pereira Isaac Rangaswami Rosie Rushton Alice Snape Samme Snow Jack Thompson Yuki Toribe Chlöe Torr Kat Tso Chris Waywell Sam Wong

Arts Lead Nadja Coyne Kiosk magazine is published by Applied Research Creative Studio Limited, 12 D’Arblay Street, London W1F 8DU. © Applied Research Creative Studio Limited, 2026. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Kiosk Magazine and its logo are trademarks of Applied Research Creative Studio Limited.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the respective contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. All prices, specifications, and details of products and services mentioned are correct at the time of going to press and are subject to change without notice. EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

Cover Image Kat Tso of Katscribblz, photographed by Qozeem Lawal

Words TATSUO HINO

Photography AARON HETTY

KIOSK MAGAZINE

11 Once a month, the pan-Asian SHŌTENGAI MARKET takes over Lower Stable Street, bringing thousands of visitors to King’s Cross for food, fashion and fun. Running from Thursday to Sunday, Shōtengai is a collaboration between Kiosk and Beams & Co, the UK arm of the storied Japanese lifestyle retailer and cultural arbiter established in Tokyo over 40 years ago. Beams & Co’s TATSUO HINO gives us an insight into the appeal of the shōtengai and how it can encourage a spirit of discovery, exchange and community, while London-based photographer AARON HETTEY trains his lens on the traders and customers enjoying the sunshine at Shōtengai Market, Lower Stable Street, N1C.

KIOSK MAGAZINE

Shōtengai Market

EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

14 Shōtengai was born from a simple but ambitious idea: to create an incubation platform where independent businesses could take root, grow and contribute to a thriving Japanese community. What began with that focused intention has since evolved into a broader, pan-Asian marketplace – one that champions independent, Asian-inspired ventures and gives them space to flourish. A shōtengai is, at its heart, a traditional Japanese shopping street: pedestrianfriendly, intimate and deeply local. These streets are lined with greengrocers, small producers, independent clothing and lifestyle shops, and casual eateries. Unlike the impersonal scale of modern shopping centres, a shōtengai cultivates a sense of familiarity and belonging. It is as much about community as it is about commerce, and it can be found across Japan – from north to south – each one reflecting the character of its neighbourhood. Here in London, Shōtengai has grown into something of a destination in its own right – a lively, ever-evolving street brought to life by curious visitors and like-minded vendors willing to experiment. London embraces diversity, and that spirit is central to what Shōtengai represents: a solid, supportive foundation where ideas can be tested, refined and expanded alongside others on a similar journey. It is almost impossible to single out individual vendors, because each one brings something distinct and meaningful. Together, they offer visitors a passage back to their origins – a sensory glimpse of different corners of Asia, all gathered in the heart of King’s Cross. In that sense, Shōtengai is not just a market; it is an invitation to explore, and perhaps to deepen one’s understanding of the cultures behind the food and crafts. We are fortunate to receive a wide range of applications from prospective vendors. Our role is not only to select but to curate thoughtfully – seeking out what is missing, what has yet to find a voice in London’s market landscape. This year alone, we have hosted tastings with emerging creators experimenting with dishes not yet seen in the city. Supporting that spirit of discovery is essential to what we do, and it is something we actively encourage. SHŌTENGAI PAN-ASIAN STREET MARKET takes place on the third weekend of the month on Lower Stable Street, King’s Cross, N1C.

KIOSK.WORLD will be launching more specialist markets this year, including a music market called ALL EARS, featuring records, books, instruments, hi-fi equipment, sheet music and wax cylinders. A celebration of music and listening with food curated by Shōtengai: not just another record fair, we’re

ALL EARS is having its first outing at Phillimore Walk just off Kensington High Street, 12th September.

ALL EARS.

If you’d like to book a stall at ALL EARS or any of our other markets, scan the QR code. EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

ISAAC RANGASWAMI 16

Words & Photography

London’s

Best KIOSKS KIOSK MAGAZINE

17 I used to think that a kiosk was an openfronted hut or cabin, where you can buy things like food, drinks and magazines. And it is, but I recently learned that this term contains other meanings, too. It’s rooted in words such as the Turkish köşk, a type of building which can be translated to “pavilion” or “mansion”. A famous example is the Çinili Köşk in Istanbul, also known as the Tiled Kiosk. It’s one of the city’s oldest surviving Ottoman pleasure palaces, decorated with glazed bricks, marble columns and intricate azure blue tiles.

Rayden Newsagent, Islington High St, N1 0RP

London’s kiosks are less grand, and I love them all the same. My favourite is a grey metal box on Exmouth Market in Clerkenwell. I like this kiosk because it proves that weird businesses can still emerge in zone 1. Its current occupant is a Spanish guy called Miguel who sells second-hand books under the name Exmouth Cultural Kiosk. Before Miguel, the kiosk’s tenant was an ex-postman known as “Jimmy Juice”, who sold orange and carrot juice. Miguel knew Exmouth Market when Jimmy ran this Islington council-owned kiosk. A couple of years ago, when he walked past it and noticed Jimmy wasn’t there anymore, he decided to pitch the council an idea: a book stall. Miguel eventually got the green light and the keys, but had to call the cabin’s manufacturer in Coventry to actually get inside. EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

Today you can find Miguel selling all sorts of inexpensive, beautiful editions, from novellas to poetry collections to his own self-published Clerkenwell pub guides. I once bought a book of Beryl Cook paintings here for £2. In one section of his stall, the paperbacks all cost £5, which includesa £1 donation to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity. “Jimmy Juice used to fundraise for them,” Migueltold me. Before Jimmy rented it, this Exmouth Market kiosk was a newsstand. These types of businesses have been rare in London for a while and continue to disappear. Brixton News, which operated out of Brixton tube station for 36 years, recently closed after a major rent increase; Rayden Newsagents in Temple closed during the pandemic and never reopened.

KIOSK MAGAZINE

“There was an article I particularly wanted to read in one of the specialist magazines... No luck in several large newsagents, but found it here.” Fortunately, Rayden had another branch opposite Angel tube station, which still exists. This stall is part of what appears to be a thriving kiosk ecosystem. Nearby is a coffee stand called Jerry’s, which at the time of writing has a 5.0 star rating on Google based on 272 reviews. Closer to the station there’s also a florist and another coffee stall. Each of these kiosks has a secondary function, too: their exteriors display the distances to nearby landmarks, such as Chapel Market, like oversized signs.

me back to Exmouth Cultural Kiosk and Rayden Newsagent – Cockfosters tube station, too. Cockfosters is at the northern terminus of the Piccadilly line, near Enfield. This Grade II-listed station opened in 1933 and was designed by Charles Holden, the architect behind other modernist stations like Oakwood, East Finchley and Piccadilly Circus. It still contains many original features, such as its big clock, globe-shaped lights and neat, compact ticket kiosk.

But the coolest thing about Angel’s news stall is the number of publications it stocks. When you are confronted with this selection, it’s hard to feel that print is dead. On a recent visit I noticed papers and magazines such as Attitude, Bridal Guide, China Daily, Dazed, Hello!, OK!, Private Eye, Racing Post, The Irish World , The Stage and Vogue. When I asked the proprietor what his biggest sellers were, he said The New Yorker and The World of Interiors, maybe because that’s what I was about to buy. It’s sad seeing businesses like this close, so I hope people continue to support this one and sing its praises. “There was an article I particularly wanted to read in one of the specialist magazines,” a recent Google reviewer called Sandra said. “No luck in several large newsagents, but found it here.”

People sometimes call Cockfosters “church-like”, because it has a nave-like concourse and high windows that let in a lot of natural light. I find that its beauty mostly lies in its functionality. I particularly love the fixtures that have become defunct, such as the phone boxes that no longer

Rayden’s placement, at the corner of Liverpool Road and Upper Street, means it attracts passing trade. By reappearing in the same spot every day, local people naturally get to know its owner. Whenever I’ve bought magazines here, he’s been deep in conversation with a customer or passer-by. I once heard him wish a regular good luck for that night’s Aston Villa match. Another guy, who I think ran a nearby business or market stall, politely paused his conversation with the owner when I went to pay. Rayden is a shop, but it’s also a part of Islington street life. Chains like Tesco Express and TGJones (formerly WHSmith) don’t cultivate customer relationships in the same way. Their employees work hard, too, but they don’t have as much of a stake in their businesses, or show up as regularly as an owner-operator would. I think a big part of Rayden’s community value is that the same guy is always there – or at least there every time I go. What interests me most about kiosks is the people they contain. That’s what draws EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

contain phones or doors, yet still have notices explaining how to get out of them in an emergency. The rest of the station remains in use, sometimes quite poignantly. Unusually for a tube station, it has a pair of aging, operational public loos. Last time I was there, one of its light fixtures was missing; another was emitting a different shade of light to the rest. I’ve seen people use its concourse as a meeting place, and sit on its timber benches even if they don’t have a train to catch. The TfL staff who occupy its ticket kiosk are kind of hanging out too. In between helping customers and doing other tasks, you hear them chatting and joking. Like all the best kiosks, this open-fronted hut or cabin is homely, maybe because people stand inside it all day.

Words Words KIOSK LOREM IPSUM

Photography Photography QOZEEM LAWAL LOREM IPSUM

KIOSK ROUNDTABLE

No.1:

THE BAKERS SAM WONG HAI LIN LEUNG CHLÖE TORR CRYSTELLE PEREIRA KIOSK MAGAZINE

Kiosk asked cake genius SAM WONG of Lil’ Wong Bakes to gather some of her peers to talk about their bakes and their business; they very kindly allowed us to listen in on their chat, conducted over some delicious examples of the bakers’ wares.

This conversation is a condensed version of the first Kiosk Roundtable Podcast. If you’d prefer to listen to the full episode follow Kiosk.World Stories wherever you get your podcasts, or scan the QR code.

Topics covered include flavour profiles, side hustles, tax returns and GBBO: it’s an honest insight into the everyday obsessions of the small-business baker. Hi, I’m SAM from Lil’ Wong Bakes. We’re here to explore what it means to turn a creative obsession into a small business. Joining me today are HAI LIN LEUNG from Lucky Yu Bakery, CHLÖE TORR from Möu Möu Living, and CRYSTELLE PEREIRA - cook, food writer and broadcaster. Let’s start with introductions. Hai Lin, I’ll come to you first.

Bake Off, saw a 15-year-old absolutely killing it, thought I could probably do that, went to Wilko, bought my supplies, and just started. I posted my first cake on Instagram and it snowballed from there. Everything I’ve done is self-taught. And Crystelle, people may well recognise you.

week, and quickly realised I could learn so much faster making a hundred loaves a day than two at home. I enrolled in bread school – very type-A doctor, I need a qualification before I can commit to anything – and one of the modules was actually business-focused. We had to invent a fictional bakery, and that’s when I thought up Lucky Yu. It was completely imaginary at that point.

CRYSTELLE: I’m a cook, food writer and

SAM: So when did it become real?

SAM:

HAI LIN: I’m the owner and sole employee of

Lucky Yu Bakery, which I started a couple of years ago alongside my work as a doctor. I run everything from home, my equipment lives in my basement, which is essentially a lightless dungeon. Our kitchen window opens onto a drive, so when I’m selling bread, people queue up outside. It’s a reallife drive-through, except with no space for cars. SAM: Hai Lin, how did Lucky Yu actually

begin? Had you always wanted to run a bakery?

broadcaster – all things food. You might recognise me from The Great British Bake Off, though I always get awkward about mentioning it. I’ll never assume people have watched it. Americans are particularly enthusiastic – Bake Off is on Netflix over there and they love anything quintessentially British. The bunting, the scones, the crumpets. People have actually cried meeting me, which is genuinely surreal, because, respectfully, I’m not Beyoncé. But it’s such a wholesome show. Nobody’s going to egg you in the street.

HAI LIN: It’s a play on words. In Cantonese,

the word for “to have abundance” sounds the same as the word for fish, which is why fish appears in my branding. So it’s lucky to have abundance – but it also just sounds like “lucky you”. SAM: That’s so clever. I wish I’d never put

my own name in my brand – people think I’m called Lily and I just respond to it now. Chlöe, what about you? CHLÖE: I’m also employee number one of one at Möu Möu. I make celebration cakes, wedding cakes, and I do wedding and event flowers. It actually started in lockdown with tie-dyed face masks and matching scrunchies – the original Möu Möu. Then in 2022 I binge-watched Junior

SAM: I remember your series – I think it might

have been the last one I properly watched. And I’m Sam. I started Lil’ Wong Bakes just before lockdown in 2019 because my brother was getting married and wanted to save money on the cake. Sorry, Adam! I got obsessed with Victoria sponge, started bringing cakes into my fashion job every week, and people kept telling me to sell them. I kept saying no. Six years later, I’ve just gone freelance. Here we are. Hai Lin, how did Lucky Yu actually begin? Had you always wanted to run a bakery? HAI LIN: Not at all – I’d always loved making

bread at home, just for fun. Then I started volunteering at a charity bakery one day a EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

HAI LIN: After bread school I spent a

summer doing internships in bakeries and restaurants, and someone mentioned their friend was selling all her micro-bakery equipment. I thought: well, I suppose now is the time. Dug out the coursework, landed on the name, and slowly it became real. SAM: Chlöe, how did the floristry side come

about? Because it’s quite a leap from cakes. CHLÖE: I’d always wanted to do flowers

but never had any training. I did them for a friend’s wedding just before lockdown, then for my own wedding, and it was always on the back burner. When the cake side took off I was already in that creative headspace, so it just followed naturally. Everything I do is self-taught. I think that’s actually why I enjoy it: there are no rules I feel obliged to follow. SAM: And Crystelle: before all of this, you

were in a completely different world entirely, weren’t you? CRYSTELLE: I worked in an investment bank

for four and a half years. I studied languages at university, went to an open day at a bank on a whim, got chatting to someone in HR, told her I loved communicating with people, and she called me the next day with

Kiosk Roundtable No.1: The Bakers

an internship offer. I ended up staying for years. I liked it – great team, good work – but eventually I came up for air and thought: is this really what I want for the rest of my life?

It’s unsociable hours and it’s physically demanding. Those 120-serving wedding cakes are genuinely heavy! I got a personal trainer last year partly because of it.

SAM: And food had always been there in

SAM: How do you handle it when someone

the background?

starts to haggle?

CRYSTELLE: Always. I grew up in a family

CHLÖE: I’ll say: okay, here’s what I can do

where food is everything. When guests come over, it’s not one curry, it’s three curries, three rices, three vegetables. I became my mum’s chief taste tester from about age six. Working in food felt like an unattainable dream while I was in finance. Then lockdown happened, I got more into baking, my sister suggested I apply for Bake Off. I thought there was absolutely no chance, and somehow I ended up on it.

within your budget. A lot of the time they say yes. You don’t have to lose the booking. But you do have to make money. CRYSTELLE: There’s also a gendered element.

My male counterpart simply would not be saying, “No worries if not”. He’d state his price and leave it there. It’s the same muscle you build when asking for a pay rise. You have to be able to say: “This is what I’ve done, this is my price. That’s it”.

uncomfortable to raise prices, but you have no choice. SAM: If you could do one dream collaboration

in Spain called Bussoga who make incredible pop art tessellating tiles. I’d love to create a tile wall using different bread shapes. I then discovered they’ve collaborated with Hermès on scarves and ties – and I thought, imagine a beautiful patterned scarf where you look closely and realise it’s entirely composed of bread. That’s the dream. SAM: I love that. Chlöe?

SAM: Hot takes. What do people consistently

SAM: Do you find people push back on

CHLÖE: My aspiration genuinely isn’t to have

a bakery – I’m happy in my little zone doing commissions. But the collaborations I’ve enjoyed most have been with friends. Last year I was the dessert slot during a residency my friend Haley was doing at a restaurant in London, which was brilliant. And I recently organised a charity paint-and-sip event with my best friend Sarah, who’s an incredible abstract artist. We raised around £600 for Body & Soul, a mental health charity supporting families affected by suicide. I did the flowers as visual inspiration for the paintings, there was cake, and it was genuinely one of the best days.

pricing, Chlöe? SAM: That sounds amazing. Crystelle? CHLÖE: Constantly, but more over flowers

than cakes. People can get roses from a supermarket for three pounds, so they question why I charge what I charge. What they don’t see is that I’m up at four in the morning going to the flower market.

directly into my veins. We’re doing it! SAM: Last one: what’s the boring habit that

genuinely changed how you work? CHLÖE: Getting my business off Instagram

SAM: Ha! I did mine two weeks early this year.

CRYSTELLE: We filmed during lockdown, so

spoke to a friend who’d had someone make her wedding cake and assumed the baker would be finishing it on the morning of the wedding – which is why she hadn’t invited her to the ceremony. I had to explain that wedding cakes take at least three days. People don’t understand the time and effort involved, and when something is priced at a certain level, it’s because it’s genuinely worth that.

CRYSTELLE: The sandos. I need them injected

HAI LIN: There’s a tile designer we came across

HAI LIN: And costs keep going up. It feels

CRYSTELLE: That a cake just takes an hour. I

people in this room. I’m also launching a food truck called Turn Up Truck with a friend, coming to London very soon. And I’ve had my eye on a collab with Crystelle ever since I watched her spend her tasting tokens on my stall at a party and thought: we need to make something happen.

– a pop-up, a brand partnership, anything –what would it be?

practically speaking?

get wrong about baking?

SAM: I Hard agree! Mine is honestly the

and setting up a proper order system. Before that I was hunting through DMs for orders, and customers would disappear and I’d have no idea who they were because their handle was something like BabyAngel. Knowing people’s actual names and order details has been transformative. That and doing my tax return before the day of the deadline. Still working on that one.

SAM: What was that whole experience like,

we had to go and stay rather than commute at weekends. I told my team I’d be gone for a week because I assumed I wouldn’t last long. I was there the whole time. Then when the show aired, I kept working for another seven months before finally quitting. I was terrified of leaving the security. But I was essentially doing two full-time jobs, running out of annual leave, and couldn’t even call in sick because I had a public Instagram. My colleagues had assumed I’d had a breakdown because I’d taken extended leave from a bank without any explanation. That was almost four years ago now, which is genuinely terrifying to say out loud.

She’s completely iconic. I think she should basically be the new monarch.

CRYSTELLE: My dream is Alison Hammond

and Nigella Lawson. Nigella specifically because she’s not formally trained – everything comes from passion and real love of food, and that resonates deeply with me. KIOSK MAGAZINE

Personal best. Crystelle? CRYSTELLE: I always go to events alone. If

I bring a friend, we sit in the corner together all night and I don’t speak to anyone new. Going alone forces you to talk to people, and that’s how you build a network. The first time feels daunting, but the person you approach is almost always relieved someone came over. Not drinking helps, too; you’re fully present, you remember every conversation, and there’s no dread the next morning. SAM: Every event I’ve gone to alone, I’ve

come home with a new friend. The one time I froze was a fashion event early on – camera in my face, steamy pub – and I literally turned around in the doorway and walked back out into the street. But every other time, going alone has been completely worth it. HAI LIN: For me, it’s committing to doing things properly rather than when they feel convenient. Bread school forced that discipline on me. When you’re running everything alone, you have to be your own manager. Nobody else is going to chase you.

THE BAKES CH L

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O N GE E S

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SAM: Look at that

DO U

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O OCOLATE SP

HAI LIN: The cocoa and

STELLE’S Y CR

SAM’S

RT BR

O ILL IONAIRE’S SH

CHLÖE: I’ve literally got

crumbs in my hair. That’s the way to do it!

DA PAN

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that malt butter cream, it’s phenomenal. Oh my god.

EAD

cross section!

ST RAW

RT CA K

AM SES E

I LIN’S

BERRY S

CRYSTELLE: I am pandan over

matcha any day. This slaps you around the face with pandan, and it’s amazing! It’s a sensory experience, I’ve really immersed myself.

EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

Kiosk Roundtable No.1: The Bakers LUCKY YU BAKERY was started by HAI LIN LEUNG in 2023. It is an expression of her British-born Cantonese background – incorporating flavours, textures and ingredients from her upbringing into and alongside more traditional European-style baking. She draws just as much inspiration from her time spent eating in HK cafes as she does from working as a pastry chef at St. JOHN. The fortnightly menus showcase high quality seasonal produce, UK grown stoneground grain and cultured British butter, always with the aim of creating bakes that are as fun for her to make as they are delicious for everyone to eat. @LUCKYYUBAKERY

QUICK-FIRE QUESTIONS Favourite bake ever? illed pie. CRYSTELLE: Curry-f

CRYSTELLE PEREIRA is a chef, food writer, author and broadcaster based in London, known for her quick wit and vibrant approach to food. Born in North London to Kenyan-born, Portuguese-Goan parents, her cooking is deeply influenced by her heritage as well as her travels around the world. She captured the hearts of the nation as a finalist on The Great British Bake Off, and was recently named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. Crystelle’s debut cookbook, Flavour Kitchen (Hachette), was published in May 2023 and reached No.1 in Gourmet Food & Drink. Her growing TV career includes appearances on Good Morning America, The Today

Show, Saturday Kitchen and Sunday Brunch, as well as serving as a series judge on The World Cook (Amazon Prime). @CRYSTELLEPEREIRA

CHLÖE TORR is the founder behind London based brand, MÖU MÖU – a creative melting pot of

Favourite Utensil? per. HAI LIN: Dough scra

floristry and bespoke celebration cakes. Möu Möu began in 2020 under a completely different guise, and it wasn’t until 2022 that Chlöe made her first “posh” cake and began gifting them to her friends and family for birthdays. Completely self-taught, and still running everything from her tiny home kitchen, Chlöe has built Möu Möu into what it is today, hosting events and supper clubs, working

Most snackable snack? pcorn. CRYSTELLE: I love po ps. Or The Ugly Truffle cris

with brands like Nando’s, Ganni, Percival and The Hoxton, plus features in Vogue and The Wed. Möu Möu offers a unique combination of wedding cakes and florals, and is becoming a go to for couples, especially for intimate London weddings. The biggest compliment you could give Chlöe about her work? That the cakes taste as amazing as they look! @MOUMOU_LIVING

on to eat? Favourite spot in Lond yghur CHLÖE: Eteles the U stow. restaurant in Waltham amstow ods, the High Street or Best Fo st Road. Sri Lankan deli on Fore alth HAI LIN: Raya on W

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LIL’ WONG BAKES began in 2019, a micro-bakery based in Dalston, East London. SAM WONG (baker and owner) is pandan-obsessed and best known for her Pandan Sandos: chiffon sponge sandwich cakes filled with whipped cream and fruit. Lil’ Wong Bakes is a bakehouse that is made up of unique flavours and pulls inspiration from East and South East Asian desserts. Sam believes and lives by the saying that “There is a separate stomach for sweet things”. As featured in Time Out, and a Waitrose ‘One to Watch’ @LILWONGBAKES

EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

THINGS WE LIKE

Words ABIGAIL CAITLIN GHENT

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We meet lots of amazing makers and designers in our markets and shops and out and about in the world. Here, we’re sharing some of our favourite design objects – maybe they’ll become your favourite things, too. 01. ODD PROJECTS: Handmade Cushions. Huggable handmade cushions by Delly Deacon and Oscar Mitchell. 02. RACHAEL COCKER: Butter Dish. Melty slipware butter dish in black and white by Glasgowbased artist Rachael. 03. LEWIS DUCKWORTH: Coat Hangers. Bold aluminium hangers in juicy colours, made to be seen! Each hanger is bent by hand before being anodised. 04. LILY PEARMAIN: Ceramics Vase. A good, quiet, beautiful, strong pot made by Lily in her studio in south east London.

05. JAMES SHAW: Door Numbers. Made to order door numbers for the front of your house or wherever you need really. Hand extruded from recycled HDPE. 06. FERN TAYLOR: Rabbit Mug. These hand-built nerikomi mugs with a glossy glaze are just right for a morning coffee. 07. TABATHA PEARCE CHEDIER: Modo Container. A translucent receptacle for all those items that don’t belong in any particular place – not hidden but celebrated!

08. THE OUZE: Ruby Heart Necklace. Carved from wax and cast in silver, each heart is set with a small round-cut ruby at its core and can be worn on its own or as twins in a set of two. Designed by Toby Vernon in Lewes. 09. IMOGEN DENTON: Knitwear by commission. Gorgeous knitwear made to order; Imogen also sells her knitting patterns on a pay what-you-can model. .10. MADE IN A *BEDROOM: Love You xx Pouch. Screen printed ECOPAK, 150x120mm; all pouches were made by Jakob in a bedroom and are 100% real.

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11. THIS IS UNIFORM: Star Trousers. Trousers made by modular and functional slow fashion brand This Uniform from charcoal soft chino cloth, with six pockets and an elasticated waistband with drawstring for extra size adjustment.

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12. HAPPY BELLY MAN: Shooting Star Ring. Chunky night magic rings made from recycled silver, carved from beeswax by happybellyman, a self-taught jeweller working from their boat on the river Lea. 13. BIG EZ: Beer Mat Rosette. Handmade from 1950s beer mats, a joyful new way to celebrate beer by wearing it, from London-based Big Ez.

If you like this sort of thing, visit us at our IRL space at 108 Lower Stable Street in King’s Cross. We’re curating a seasonal shop filled with objects that have a story: from high-end homewares to niche prints and independent accessories. We’ll be working with some of our favourite artists and makers to select the stock so there’s always something new to discover.

14. FLAWK: Rosa Wall Hook. Formed from a single piece of sheet aluminium cut into the outline of a rose, with the flower’s thorns drawn outward to create a series of subtle hooks for lightweight everyday items. 15. MO TONG X FLAWK: Bulb Table. Mo Tong created a table with one oversized leg that doubles as a lamp, dissolving the boundaries between functionality and decoration.

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EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

Join us for interactive craft workshops, local food takeovers and live music while you browse. Don’t just consume – collect. If you’re a maker and you’d like to talk to us about being part of Kiosk.Made, please contact events@kioskn1c.com

Words CHRISTINE MURRAY Why starting from social value might just bring the biggest returns – for our high streets and our communities

YOU CAN’T PUT A PRIC£ ON THAT

I’m scrambling to pull together a meal that our children will eat when I hear a persistent tap at my kitchen window. Two little faces peer in; the kids next door. Within minutes, my youngest daughter joins them outside, dropping whatever she’s up to – an iPad couldn’t drag her away. They bounce between the houses for an hour or so until I call her back inside like we’re in a sitcom from 1985.

What is that knock on the window worth to me? The value of a best friend that lives next door. A moment of peace in the kitchen. Can you put a price on that? You can, and there’s a term for it – social value. The social value of a place has always mattered. It affects where we choose to live and how we spend our time. The concept is entangled with health and wellbeing, which are boosted by feelings of belonging, safety and connectedness – from the smile of the helpful lollipop lady to the local GP practice. Places have a rich impact on our lives and much of that can be estimated in a social value calculation. People have spent 20 years measuring it in places. The first efforts date back to the New Labour government’s attempt to show value for money during the New Deal for Communities (1997-2010). To justify their investment in neighbourhood renewal, they started tracking data from A-level attainment to employment rates. Social value calculators now estimate the value in pounds of all kinds of things you can’t buy at the shop, such as living on a tree-lined street. And the numbers are big. According to Sport England, the social value of sport and physical activity to England is estimated to be £123bn. A recent report by Deloitte states that £1 spent on preventative healthcare generates £8 of social value. Everyone is adding social calculations to their spreadsheets. Even the most cynical free-market capitalist is keen to keep track of it for one reason: it pays the rent.

“Novelty is important, but attention is fleeting and so are trends.

A growing number of people rent their homes, office spaces, market stalls and shops from institutional landlords who view properties as long-term, income-generating assets as part of a balanced portfolio. They want tenants to pay the rent on time and stay put. In volatile times, their ambition is to make a stable and predictable return. What keeps these landlords up at night is a high vacancy rate, tenancy churn and obsolescence. Vacancy is contagious. One empty shop can lead to more. The same is true of flats and houses. It costs money every time there’s a new tenant to be found. As for obsolescence, climate change can put a property at risk of flooding or overheating. It could also be dated in terms of its design or expensive to heat and maintain. KIOSK MAGAZINE

29 The factors that drive duration of tenancy are more complex. Why do people live, shop and work where they do? Why do they move away? What makes them meet up in one place and not another? In short, the risk is social. Factors such as community connection, employment opportunities and personal relationships can be powerful incentives to stay put. That’s why many property developers are investing in social activities to foster friendships among tenants, from pizza parties to summer fêtes. Keeping fit is seen as important, too – healthy people are more productive and less likely to fall into arrears.

A shop can go viral within hours and still go bust within a year.”

But there’s another social force driving behaviour these days – especially when it comes to leisure time and shopping: social media One of the reasons mental health can be so affected by Instagram and TikTok is social comparison – it encourages you to compare your life to someone else’s. A scroll through your feed can make you feel self-conscious about your home, your clothes, even your lunch. The growing pressure to curate your life so that it can be shared online with friends can make you highly critical of your neighbourhood and dissatisfied with places that lack excitement. There’s also the pressure to never post the same picture twice and to share something visually interesting. This can distort your perspective – where the perception of a place as represented in a photo is more important than your reality. Loneliness isn’t pictured. The other trouble with places is that they are very slow to change and, sometimes, not much to look at. Gen Z and millennial shoppers are the most frequent visitors to retail stores in the UK, and social media rewards them when they seek out experiences worth posting. Shops might change the merchandise, but not daily. It takes years to revamp a public space and, once complete, it’s unlikely to be refreshed again any time soon. High streets with the same old brands can suffer from a lack of unique shops – a recipe for disappointed customers. Novelty is important, but attention is fleeting and so are trends: a shop can go viral within hours and still go bust within a year. Events and pop-ups can help keep things fresh. Some places have markets with a changing selection of stalls while others have performance spaces with a changing programme of happenings. This makes good business sense, but chasing social media is costly and exhausting. Activation to drive footfall is a vital part of a marketing plan, but can lead to place burnout. Which brings me back to my kitchen window and those two little faces behind the glass. If I took a photo of them, it wouldn’t go viral. And there’s nothing new about their visit (they stopped by yesterday). But at the end of the day, the joy of meaningful human connection trumps a handful of comments and likes.

CHRISTINE MURRAY is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Developer magazine, host of The Developer Podcast, and co-founder of Festival of Place and The Pineapples awards for place.

It’s community engagement – listening and talking to people – that keep us connected, healthy and thriving. It’s the loyalty of a shopkeeper who saves your order behind the till, the waiter who remembers what you like and those friends that you meet at the Sunday parkrun that represent long-term social value. We may fancy new places and experiences, but it’s meaningful relationships that keep us coming back. EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

Words HOPE CUNNINGHAM

Photography CHANTELLE FAITH KUSI

How to Lose Your Mind Working in Food

Waiting for my chef to precariously ladle Brazilian prawn stew out of a pot taller than her, frantically wiping the sides of bowls with haste to make them look presentable, then running 35 of them up a flight of stairs and in front of a room of hungry people. This was the moment my anxiety peaked: I questioned why I had put myself through the hassle of creating a supper club when absolutely no one had asked me to. In the chaos of service, it was hard to remember why I wanted this evening to happen, and why losing my mind was worth it. KIOSK MAGAZINE

Food

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“Once all the mains were out, I didn’t want to go back upstairs, my ANXIETY at an

ALL-TIME HIGH.”

Through my magazine chicken + bread, I’ve spent the last five years documenting food stories, cultural memory and identity on the page, but this year I was adamant about pushing myself to offer more to my growing audience. Our Table, the first chicken + bread supper club, was an endeavour that turned storytelling into something tangible, something shared between strangers over plates of food. I’d started a magazine by myself with no prior experience – how hard could it be to feed 35 people at once? KIOSK MAGAZINE

How to Lose Your Mind Working in Food

Once all the mains were out, I didn’t want to go back upstairs, my ANXIETY at an ALLTIME HIGH. Everyone hadn’t got their food at the same moment, an impossible feat, I may add, but seeing people wait to receive their dish while others had already finished eating was an indication to my high-stressed mind that I’d done something wrong. When the starters came out, the room went from lively chatter into silence as everyone began to eat. It felt like a moment of judgement, every bite a deliberation about whether the money paid to be there had been worth it. I took the silence as a negative sign, as opposed to what it really was: clear evidence that the food was good enough to focus on. And the stress didn’t start and end on the day of the event; it was ever-present from the moment I decided I would host a supper club, months before. Reaching out to a chef friend and asking her to curate the menu – will people like the food? Will our friendship be affected by working together? Figuring out how I was going to afford everything. I could have charged more to cover all costs and made a profit, but I wanted the event to be affordable and accessible. What if no one came and the losses were more than expected? Once our wonderful chef was on board, the next step was securing the venue, the space that made it all worth it. I visited Kiju Coffee, a women-run events space and Vietnamese coffee shop in Battersea. When I first met Kim, one of the co-owners, she kindly made me a Vietnamese coffee as we chatted about being women of colour working in the food industry. She spoke about how excited she was that I’d reached out to host the event and how willing she was to make it a success. She also told me she happened to know my best friend’s brother, as he was a regular at her first coffee shop in Soho. It felt like the most amazing alignment. EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

“I felt so much at ease after this first meeting.”

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How to Lose Your Mind Working in Food

“The mammoth task I’d set myself suddenly felt possible, not because the logistics had become easier, but because I had met someone who understood the importance of what I was trying to build.”

“In an industry that can feel isolating, that moment of connection made hosting the supper club feel less like madness and more like community in action.”

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How to Lose Your Mind Working in Food “That’s when I realised this is what it’s about. We’ve lost so many homely spaces. People my age can’t always host dinner gatherings anymore because we’re living in shared flats or at home with family. So the cooking clubs give a version of that it’s community recreated through food.”

Kim wasn’t joking about how willing she was to help. Even though I’d only hired the space for four hours on a Sunday, she allowed us access on Friday and Saturday – and we didn’t leave until 10pm. She even cooked us dinner on one of the days. She accepted our produce deliveries, sourced an ice machine so we could make cocktails, borrowed a deep fat fryer so our chef could make tostones for the main course, set up a WhatsApp group for ease of communication, and roped in her husband and co-owner, Julie, to run service during the event. They washed cutlery, plates and bowls for 35 people throughout and after the event with smiles on their faces. There is absolutely no way the supper club would have happened without Kim. Losing my mind to host this event felt worth it because of moments like this, when strangers become collaborators, and a venue hire becomes something closer to a shared effort. Eyram Dzotsi, founder of Garden of Afruika, a food platform that provides free cooking classes and affordable supper clubs, sees this connection play out at his events, too. “The most important thing is the element of collectivism,” he told me. “Every stage, from chopping to washing up, is a small exercise in practising collectivism. No one’s doing anything alone. When I started, I didn’t expect that people would stay after sessions, chatting for ages. That’s when I realised this is what it’s about. We’ve lost so many homely spaces. People my age can’t always host dinner gatherings anymore because we’re living in shared flats or at home with family. So the cooking clubs give a version of that. It’s community recreated through food.” I saw small echoes of this unfolding across the room that reflected exactly what Eyram described. A young couple at the supper club

seemed like they were on a date. A few people came alone. I would check on them throughout the event and see them speaking with people around them, slowly building connections. These felt like signs of trust from my audience. In a city where space is limited and time feels scarce, choosing to sit at a table with strangers is its own act of openness. In the aftermath of the supper club, these were the moments that made me so glad I went ahead with it. Not the logistics, not the stress, but the quiet evidence that people were finding connection in a room that didn’t exist before we created it. It’s obvious that anxiety and the service industry don’t mix. Organising this supper club often felt overwhelming, made even more intense by the fact that I was figuring everything out for the first time. I felt an obligation to help in all areas, so I was in the kitchen chopping vegetables for hours until my back was hurting. It felt impossible to stand still when there was always something else to do, another task that needed attention, another detail that could go wrong. This is also my side hustle. I have a full-time job, so organising such a big event during my free time takes a toll, especially when there’s no time to rest. The event took place on Easter Sunday, and I was back at work on Tuesday, a shell of a person, in dire need of some good rest. But people lingered after the final plates were cleared, talking, laughing, congratulating me. While the mains were being carried out, I was certain this would be a one-time experience. But hearing the question: “When’s the next one?” has me asking the same thing myself, ready to do it all over again, the good parts and the bad. Because losing your mind over food, over people, over the hope that strangers might sit down together and leave as something closer to a community, might just be worth it every time.

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EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

Words KEVIN GREEN

Photography QOZEEM LAWAL

KIOSK MAGAZINE

39 What does it take to build an independent creative practice? Who gets to go to art school? And how do you know that you might want to be a product designer if you don’t know that product designers exist? STORE is drafting answers to some of these questions.

STORE is an association of artists, architects and designers working between London and Rotterdam towards a common goal: supporting more young people from underrepresented backgrounds applying to creative courses, and addressing the social imbalance in art, design and architecture education. Through free After School Clubs, an August Summer School programme, winter portfolio preparation courses and workshops in state schools for students aged 14-18, STORE helps young people find routes into design. Started 7 years ago in an empty shop on Store Street in Bloomsbury, STORE has come full circle with STORE Store. Their shops on Lower Stable Street in King’s Cross and Hackney sell the objects designed and made by the students in workshops like these, alongside objects including jewellery, glassware, soap, ceramics, candles and books designed and made by STORE associates and their wider networks, with all sales supporting STORE’s educational programmes. More than that, STORE STORE’s very presence helps broaden the range of spaces on the high street.

BEYOND THE

40 KEVIN GREEN: STORE started on Store St in central London. A colleague and I used to take on empty shops along the road to curate exhibitions, talks and artist residencies. At some point we curated a series of architectural installations along the road and invited 60 designers, architects and artists to take part. Most of them were the first STORE associates. A few of our team have worked on admission panels for university design and architecture degrees. We witnessed the gap, particularly in portfolios, between private school students and their state school peers. In our After School Clubs and especially in our Summer Schools, we have the time and space to explore materials and processes that young people are unable to explore at school. We believe that students who attend our programmes will be in an even better position than their private school peers when it comes to applying to undergraduate creative courses. Above all, these programmes are a really good way to boost a young person’s self-confidence and an opportunity for them to make new friends. All of our workshop programmes are run by practicing designers, who guide the students through a process they are expert in. The students seem to value learning creative processes that are not taught in

Beyond the Store school the most. It is common to have a group of students who have never tried, or perhaps never even heard of, the design process we are teaching. This means that their design ideas are broadened and they gain confidence in skills that they might not have thought they could access. We work both with tutors who have a lot of teaching experience and those that have just graduated. Especially for those that have recently graduated, the After School Clubs can be a really good opportunity to transform a design practice into a teaching practice. We started off running artists residencies and summer school programmes. We never considered retail until Argent and Vickie Hayward approached us in 2018 to pilot the model that we now deliver in Coal Drops Yard. We are really grateful for that opportunity as it shaped our educational programme today. I don’t shop much – only from STORE STORE. My favourite object on sale in the shop has to be the cardboard ceramic mugs, designed by workshop students in 2023, guided by Ray Gonzalez Brown. They are a pleasure to hold, and their satisfying mix of smooth and rough texture is like nothing I’ve seen before.

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STORE STORE KING'S CROSS 118 Lower Stable Street N1C 4DR STORE STORE HACKNEY 154 Stoke Newington Church Street N16 0JU

STORE Store.

Words CHRIS WAYWELL

Photography @BLIXA_

A SITE OF RITUAL

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From open-mic electronica nights to hanging out with Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Camberwell Green’s independent record shop DASH THE HENGE offers a lot more than men discussing runout grooves. “Last year, we had people starting the queue at 10.30pm the night before,” says Chris OC of Dash the Henge, an independent record shop in south London, laughing. “They were all there for the Taylor Swift record. They got it, they were happy and they left.” He’s talking about Record Store Day, which is happening the following Saturday. What started in 2008 as a celebration of the plucky independent record shop and music scene has – two decades later – morphed somewhat into a scarcity-scare opportunity for major labels to have their established artists drop limited-edition vinyl versions of existing albums. This doesn’t just affect retail shops, either. “It clogs up all the pressing plants,” adds Dash the Henge’s Tim Harper. “Smaller labels don’t get look-in, because the big boys say, ‘We need to print another version of this Aha album in sky-blue vinyl’.” Chris and Tim are behind the counter at Dash the Henge, located on Camberwell Green’s perennially unglamorous road junction. Tim is stickering a pile of Smog LPs ahead of The Big Day; Chris is missing his lunch to talk to me. People say hello as they wander in and out of the shop, which is tiny and shaped like a badly cut wedge of cheese, with a raised stage at the far end hosting a drum kit and some overlarge Orange amps for a space this size. It’s a lovely, inviting space and it makes you realise what a big part CDs visually played in killing off record shops, even before the advent of digital streaming. There is just something about a wall of brand-new, edge-to-edge foot-square vinyl LPs that makes the heart soar (mine, anyway). But the pair’s good-natured grousing reflects the paradoxes of running a physical retail space in 2026, especially an independent one. “Record Store Day is a small commitment for a major label if they’re doing a 1,000-copy release,” says Chris. “But it’s a bigger commitment for a small business like us, when there’s 500 releases all coming out on the same day. We can end up with a massive bill that cripples us for the next six months.”

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A Site of Ritual

A MAD PASSION

Leaving aside the issue of Swifties treating your lovingly curated temple to vinyl as the next Supreme drop, what would anyone even think about opening a record shop these days? “Firstly, because you’re mad,” says Chris. “Secondly, because you’re passionate about it.” For Chris and Tim, that passion (and probably a lot of the madness, too) comes from a love of live music.

RITUAL BEHAVIOURS

Dash the Henge is arguably a site of ritual like its namesake. The ‘vinyl revival’ might have seen the trusty LP reinstated as a shibboleth of hipster authenticity, but the act of going to a shop and buying one off the racks has always been an experience, not just a transaction. As a teenager in London, I spent almost every Saturday in Rough Trade, Selectadisc, Sister Ray and, later, Sounds of the Universe. These were pilgrimages, not shopping trips. I always went alone. I Before the shop, there was Dash the Henge Records, a label set up had an almost physical fear of the shop assistants. It was ridiculous. in 2020 by Nathan Saoudi of The Fat White Family, one of various But you can’t underestimate the power of ritual, especially if you musical entities circling the plughole of notorious Brixton venue add live stuff to the mix. “The key part is the ritual of bringing people The Windmill. (‘Dash the Henge’ itself derives from a comment by together to witness something that’s happening in the moment,” one of FWF that they’d prefer Stonehenge if it were pebble-dashed.) says Chris. They have explicitly doubled down on this angle of their Another is death-rattle disco outfit Meatraffle, which Chris plays offering, curating gigs beyond the shop in their local church of St in and Tim manages. The shop took over the premises of a long- Giles, and pairing them with screenings of mystical and folk-horror established secondhand store, Rat Records, that closed in 2022. classics like The Wicker Man and The Holy Mountain. In January Dash the Henge stepped in and… “Decades-old Camberwell record 2026, they even put on alt-folk superman Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, which, shop saved from becoming ‘chicken shop’,” crowed Southwark for south-east London, is akin to the second coming. News at the time. “It felt like a natural progression,” says Tim. “From having a small label to taking over a bricks-and-mortar shop. “If we’d come into this to make money, we wouldn’t have done it,” says We’re not dealers in antiques. We’re working with bands, putting Chris. “We’re not going to be millionaires.” Making things on a small scale, at a community level, is always tough. Running a shop and new records out.” a label and curating live events requires an almost insane level of This is central to what makes Dash the Henge special. There’s commitment. This does not deter Dash the Henge. They have just nothing revolutionary about record labels having retail spaces: opened a second live venue in Brixton, and future plans include HMV, Virgin, Beggars Banquet and Rough Trade have all had a a festival. Perhaps their secret is their ability to retain clarity around foot in both camps at various times. DTH, though, is coming out what it is all for. of a local music scene that already has fans, regular venues in the tight-knit community of Brixton and Peckham, and a recognisable “The reason for doing it was to give ourselves the opportunity to hold identity. The real ‘madness’ would be opening a record shop from space,” says Chris. “We create our own world and invite people into it.” cold with London’s current retail rents, and hoping word-of-mouth and passing footfall would be enough to sustain it. But add the ‘passion’ of an existing and committed local scene, and everything changes. “It’s a beautiful thing having a physical record shop in your community, and it’s important to people,” says Chris. “You see it in their faces when they walk in.”

THE FLOOR IS YOURS

Though DTH’s shop opened after COVID, the pandemic played a huge part in shaping its identity and purpose. Lockdown highlighted the need for small, shared creative spaces, once we were allowed to use them. “There was a realisation,” says Chris, “that having a bricks-and-mortar location – a base camp – matters.” Put another way, if you are trying to find your tribe, having places where you can look for it is no bad thing. Inclusion and community are key ingredients in the Dash the Henge recipe. From Wednesday to Saturday every week, the shop pivots to become a live space. There are open-mics, including ones for poetry and electronic music, book launches and events. “The live element opens up the community even wider,” says Chris. “There’s the record-collecting community, but there’s also people who come here for the live music. Also, we’re licensed, so we get extra business from selling alcohol at these events, which helps.” Chris and Tim are typically modest about running a beloved shop that becomes a well-respected music and poetry venue by night. But it’s an achievement that shouldn’t be underestimated. They’ve taken a model often found in ad-hoc community- or collective-run spaces and made it viable as a business. In London. No disrespect to the rest of the country, but Dash the Henge isn’t a lone, smalltown record shop, it just has all the good qualities of one. IMAGES (R): TIM IN THE STORE

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Dash The Henge Store, 348 Camberwell New Rd, London SE5 0RW

A EVERYTHING Site of RitualINDEPENDENT

Words KIOSK

Photography QOZEEM LAWAL

NEW FACES London is alive with independent makers and businesses: Kiosk’s Qozeem Lawal took his camera out to meet them in their natural habitats. KIOSK MAGAZINE

ROSIE RUSHTON

Rushro Art, Kingston Upon Thames

WHAT DO YOU MAKE?

WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT YOUR SPACE?

I paint bright and colourful food and drink packaging, which I then turn into prints and stickers. The most popular artworks are usually Marmite, Scampi Fries and more recently, BuzzBallz.

It’s my first ever studio space, I only moved there at the end of February this year and I’ve noticed my productivity and focus has improved so much. I’ve filled it with loads of colourful inspiration from other artists and designers whose work I admire.

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YUKI TORIBE

KAIHŌ, King’s Cross

WHAT DO YOU DO?

WHAT HAPPENS AT KAIHŌ?

KAIHŌ is a Japanese café and listening bar – a music-focused space where you can enjoy onigiri, Japanese drinks and vinyl. Guests can listen to and also purchase records in-store.

We host DJ nights every Saturday, as well as our monthly standing event Sake & Sounds on the second Saturday of each month.

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BRYN MORGAN-HUGHES

M-H Furniture, Park Royal

WHAT DO YOU MAKE?

WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT IT?

Bespoke furniture and cabinetry.

It’s a really special workshop that is home to 10 or so resident makers as well as other nomadic members – the POW team have created a super-friendly and welcoming environment that caters to full-time makers and hobbyists.

WHERE DO YOU MAKE?

I have a studio in a shared workshop called POW, in Park Royal.

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JACOB ICKE

made in a *bedroom, Vauxhall

WHAT DO YOU MAKE?

Currently, but not exclusively, bags and the occasional publication. IS THERE ANYTHING YOU’D LIKE READERS TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS?

‘made in a *bedroom’ explores the economies of design and making post-education. It stemmed from my final-year

project, where I made a series of identical bags, each carrying its own individual economies and stories. My ‘*bedroom’ is a representation of both the origins of my practice, as well as a dreamed future, orbiting an honesty about the realities of life after graduating, and the desire to keep making, creating, and designing. Even though I no longer make things in my bedroom, this self-sufficient, DIY ethos will forever be a part of my practice.

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JIAYAO PENG

PPP Lab, East London

WHAT DO YOU MAKE?

WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT YOUR SPACE?

Sculptural ceramics for everday use.

The studio is filled with natural light, and being on the ground floor is a huge practical advantage for clay deliveries.

WHERE DO YOU MAKE?

I work from my studio in an industrial village in East London, surrounded by a diverse community of artists, makers and manufacturing businesses.

This is where every PPP Lab piece is designed, hand-built, glazed and finished. It’s a space for making, experimenting and developing new ideas.

EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

LUCY MORRIS-THOMAS

LOUMT, Woolwich

WHAT DO YOU MAKE?

WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT YOUR SPACE?

I make printed matter: books, prints, screen prints and other tactile design work that exists off the screen.

It’s a fun space to work in, I’ll throw everything out across the desks and slowly bring it all together. In the summer, early evenings bring this amazing orange light that leaks across the room.

WHERE DO YOU MAKE?

I’ve been based in my studio in Woolwich, South East London, for the last six years.

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CHRIS O’LEARY

FatBoy Zine, London Fields

WHAT DO YOU MAKE?

FatBoy Zine is my publishing practice, I describe it as a greedy attempt to document a small part of Asian food and identity. We release each issue yearly and focus on a specific theme. Each issue is A5 in size, and hosts writing, interviews with chefs and artists, as well as recipes. We’re stocked all over the world, which is pretty amazing for such a small zine.

FatBoy Zine Studios is my more dedicated creative production studio that works in the music, publishing and hospitality industries. So I get to work with loads of different clients on anything from branding, video editing, editorial production to digital projects and more.

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KAT TSO

Katscribblz, Lambeth

WHAT DO YOU MAKE?

Handmade food-themed clay crafts such as key rings and clay sculptures mainly inspired by Asian culture especially my hometown Hong Kong. WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT YOUR SPACE?

I work at home, on our dining table and use our home oven to

bake clay. I love being able to work at home – when I’m alone I can truly be myself and experiment on ideas freely. I am also able to execute an idea in my head immediately because I can simply go to the dining table and start making. But turning our living room into a studio space comes with its own inconvenience, we now have dinner on the sofa and use an airfryer as an alternative to the oven.

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OUR FAVOURITE SHOPS OLI FOOD CENTRE - beloved 24 hour Turkish corner shop and deli, best olive oils in South East London. 332-334 Walworth Road, SE17 2NA

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Words MICHAEL MARRIOT

Michael Marriott is a designer based in London. His webshop WoodMetalPlastic sells objects made of wood, metal and plastic or, sometimes, a combination of the three, and occasionally other materials, too. Most of the products are designed by Michael, but not all of them. For Kiosk, he has written about 52 of these objects.

52 TEXTS about THINGS

If you would like to see and buy these objects, visit woodmetalplastic.com KIOSK MAGAZINE

57 “I started WoodMetalPlastic 10 years ago, as a kind of side hustle, as an outlet for objects that came through other projects. The Ernö coat hook was the trigger, mostly. Since then it’s just grown, as other things came along that fitted, then beginning to add ‘found’ objects, typically from foreign hardware shops. It now also includes items from Sori Yanagi and Jasper Morrison. There’s some Enzo Mari in the pipeline, too!” Bottle opener, made from discarded bicycle wheels. The idea came about after the failure of an old bike wheel. It was a 1970s Belgium-made rim, and a little research suggests the only Belgium manufacturer active during this period was Eddy Merckx, which is a pretty good lineage. The opener can be tied to the shelf in the fridge by the beer. It’s what Eddy would have done, I think.

1.700C

A letter opener formed from a thin sheet of stainless steel, with a looped and riveted end to form a handle. It weighs hardly anything, hence the name – coined by fellow designer Stafford Schmool.

2.AIR MAIL

A classic Italian stainless steel lunch box, with a separate upper compartment, for bread, cake, fruit, etc. The great thing about it is that it’s ovalshaped, not round, which means it will stay upright in your bag when transporting last night’s leftovers across town. 3.ALFA

I bought one of these in a supermarket in Bilbao over 20 years ago. It just sat, bristles upwards, on a shelf for all that time, transmitting Roman centurion kind of vibes. Some time after starting WMP, I started to wonder if I could track down the factory and import them. Widely acknowledged as the most beautiful broom in the world.

4.ALICANTE

The form of an oversized bolt head suggested the instinctive rotational motion required to use this, and felt fittingly tactual in the palm of your hand. It’s made from European beech, and uses a ceramic grinding mechanism developed by Danish engineer Ken Muff Lassen. It is capable of grinding pepper, salt and spices.

5.ATLAS GRINDER

It’s a bookend, which is such an elemental kind of object, but in this instance with charm and beef added through subtraction. Designed by Oliver Hawkes, who I met when he worked for Adam Brinkworth. It’s a perfectly perforated product.

6.BOOKSTOPPER

I’ve always loved seeing crushed bent steel tube. Commonly seen on run-of-the-mill economy bed frames and school desks, it was never intended to be pretty, but nevertheless it adds quite a voluptuous garnish to square steel tube while keeping a tight and sinuous profile.

7.BOX BRACKETS

8.BUCKET LIGHT I first made one of these in 1996 when I got my first studio. It was a properly freezing, draughty, leaky ex-coach-house in Bethnal Green. It hung above my desk, and switching it on, psychologically at least, raised the temperature a couple of degrees. Solid proof that design can have mind-altering functions. Everybody loves the sunshine – as Roy Ayers used to say.

These hooks were prompted by an interior design project called Café Deco. The name was carried over from the previous sandwich shop, and prompted a few odd subtle nods towards ‘deco-ness’. Up to that moment I’d mostly been dismissive of Art Deco, seeing it as a kind of glammed-up, modernist style, lacking the fundamentalism and rigour of the Bauhaus. Maybe I’ve softened with age, but I quite like a bit of it now. This hook, simply formed from a short length of brass bar, embraced this subtle deco-ness with its ample brass curves, which makes for a generous support for the neck of your coat. 9.CARLA

A seagrass bread basket, handmade in the south of Spain. Stops your toast getting soggy, but also useful for tossing your keys in, etc. Named after Carmen Miranda, a Lusophone singer, known as the Brazilian Bombshell and famous for wearing a basket of fruit as a hat.

10.CARMEN

Incense holder channeling Donald Judd and Enzo Mari vibes, but designed and manufactured by David Searcy. Nice intelligent use of a standard aluminium extrusion, with a deft tweak and some fine finishing.

11.CHANNEL

Designed especially for easy cleaning out of coffee grinds on stove-top makers. It gets into the corners, and keeps your fingers out of the action. It has a chisel shaped business end and hole at the top for hanging. Handmade in Hackney, from reclaimed European beech.

12.COFFEE SPATULA

Spanish for bucket. This is a most bucket-like bucket, made from

13.CUBO

EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

recycled plastic in a really fetching petrol-y blue, with a simple steel wire handle. I added a small orange grip to the handle for added comfort, and acknowledgement of the teachings of Josef Albers. A signed and numbered edition of wall plaques made from Douglas fir and screen-printed in a foresty green. Respect the trees!

14.DOUGLAS FIR PLAQUE

A shelf bracket with two bends, for two shelves! Therefore requires less holes in the wall and there’s a kind of poetic economy to it? Many years before I’d designed some cast aluminium brackets that fulfilled the same use. They were also made by an American company for a short while, but I think they found quality too difficult to control. Bent and punched steel bar, however, is something I can do in my own workshop. It’s a kind of craft (as Freddie Mercury used to say).

15.DUO

Born from a love of Greek aluminium carafes and other kitchenware, and utilising the same spinning technique with a pronounced top lip, to provide the requisite strength, pourability and directness.

16.EL DORADO

Resistant to battery use, I was reluctant to buy a doorbell for home, so I started looking for a door knocker. The market comprised mostly of lion heads, which felt out of time and place. So I made one using hex-bar in the form of a large Allen key, offering the right direction and heft required. The rest of the object took shape by arranging different steel sections to support it. Its profile has a little bit of elephant in it.

17.ELEPHANT

Coat hook, injection moulded from a glass-filled nylon called Zytel. It’s super durable, incredibly impactand heat-resistant, so much so that it’s used to make indestructible BMX wheels and VW Golf inlet manifolds. Designed in 2016, as part of a commission for 2 Willow Road – now owned by the National Trust – a modernist house in Hampstead, designed in 1938 by Budapest-born architect Ernö Goldfinger as a home for him and his family.

18.ERNÖ

The form of this handle prompted Fiat as a name. It also acknowledged the technology of an era of Fiat cars I had grown up with. My first cars were a 1960s Fiat 500, then a 1977 Fiat 128, remarkable little cars, and both engineered by Dante Giacosa. They

19.FIAT

58 demonstrate a no-nonsense, down-toearth economy. Interestingly, the 128 was dismantled by Volkswagen and used as the reference for their forthcoming Golf. The transverse engine arrangement with offset final-drive and unequal-length driveshafts has gone on to become an industry standard. Researching the details of this, I discovered that Enzo Ferrari also drove a Fiat 128! The majority of cookbook stands are bulky clumsy objects, mostly made or ‘crafted’ in wood, often attempting to evoke a cosy cottage charm. Show me a cosy cottage kitchen with room for something like that. I thought it should be a small, light, ideally collapsible thing that could hang in the kitchen alongside the other utensils. The key to making it work was recognising that I could use a spring as a hinge, and the rest of the thing developed around that.

20.FUSILLI

How come most tea strainers in the UK have a handle so long they don’t stay put when settled in a cup? I was looking for an alternative for some years, and discovered this through NZ-based store KLAY, who I wholesale a few things to. The curlicued ends keep the spring formed grip in place, but also offer some purchase in the palm while straining.

21.HEI

Named after the fact that these are made from standard marine carabiners. I buy these from a Chandlers supply catalogue, and then weld on a No.2 Posi drive bit. Keyring, screwdriver and carabiner all in one.

22.HELLO SAILOR

I’ve had a wall-mounted bottle opener in my kitchen for 30 years, it’s functionally great, and so satisfying to be able to open a bottle singlehandedly, while stirring risotto, or whatever. But it always felt like twice as much material as was really needed. So eventually I set myself the task to make a simpler, lighter thing. Self-produced in brass in my workshop.

23.HOMER

I ran a ‘live project’ with Kingston University (SW London, not Jamaica) and their Product and Furniture Design course. These drawer / door pulls felt like a good addition to WMP. Inspired adaptation of a brass radiator key by Kitty Hiscox. 24.KEX

Seagrass trivet, handmade in the south of Spain, for coffee pots, tea pots, hot dishes, etc. Offers thermal and acoustic softness to

25.KON-TIKI

52 Texts About Things the table surface. An interesting side note: seagrass consumes carbon by weight 35 times faster than tropical plants I designed this for a chicken restaurant called Bird. It’s laser cut and folded aluminium, powder coated orange. It keeps your pepper grinds off the table and all the condiments in one place. Often used in bathrooms and other places, too.

26.LOBO

‘Measure twice, cut once.’ A turn of phrase that occurs in many cultures, and applicable to many aspects of life, like ‘Take care’ or ‘Be careful’. Tape measures are obviously an essential tool in any workshop, home or any other building for that matter. This is a simple 3m measure, made in Barcelona.

27.MEDID ELEPHANT

It’s a very simple, economic shelf bracket made from stainless steel wire. It’s followed on from a couple of other wire products (Fusilli and Pasodoble) I’ve designed in the last couple of years. Super light and super strong, with a hairpin bend or two.

28.MONZA

Offcuts of Cedar of Lebanon wood simply fashioned into moth deterrents. Hang them in your wardrobe. The little fuckers just hate the smell of this beautiful softwood.

29.MOTH/NO

30.OHIO Brass soap dish. Brass sheet, hand pressed by Italian artisans. Plenty of perforations, so soap drains nicely. This has a raw, lightly brushed finish, so will gather a marvellous patina if you let it. This chair evolved from a project for European-inspired restaurant, Café Deco. A bentwood chair felt instinctively appropriate, suggestive of café’s across the continent, all descendents of Michael Thonet’s mid-19th century experiments. This design evolved, taking cues from existing archetypes. Made in Europe from sustainably sourced solid beech, with an eco-oil finish.

31.OLÁ CHAIR

A keyring designed by Jasper Morrison in 1992 for German company, Teunen & Teunen. Reissued by WMP in 2026 with appropriately etched text. Brass or stainless steel, cut and etched in Scotland, polished in London. Look out for your keys, and your keys look out for you – as Confucius used to say. 32.OMI

There’s lots of salad servers out in the world, but I couldn’t find any nice simple wooden ones. They were

33.OSLO

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either slightly too over-designed or pseudo-ethnic-artisan-crafty. I hope these satisfy the everyday need for a quiet elegance combined with that wonderful warmth of wood. Made of ash – it’s up there with Douglas fir in terms of carbon sequestering. Chrome-plated steel, doublelever corkscrew with terrific turning force. Same essential principle as the most common one with a beer bottle opener at the top, this one, by excluding that element, increases purchase significantly. It’s a Spanish classic, invented in 1932, Colloquially referred to as a búho, Spanish for owl.

34.OWL

This is a wall-mounted coat hook made from CNC-bent stainless steel wire. Seeing the machines that make these things in action is quite beautiful, and reminded me of a kind of fast-paced dance.

35.PASODOBLE

That’s the brand name for these American designed and manufactured pocket-sized pens. Previously only available from America. Available in yellow, black or orange. So much better than the other famous orange American thing! 36.POKKA PENS

Simple S-hooks, initially made from cut-up prototypes of Fusilli cookbook stands (I hate waste), then more wire lengths I had for prototyping. Handy.

37.S-HOOKS

38.SANTA MONICA PAELLA TABLE

This is a numbered edition of five side tables, that came about as I’d ended up with a bunch of Eames DSW dowel bases from discarded plastic shell chairs. Too nice a structure to discard, I added Paella trays to make small tables. Santa Monica is where the Eames built their landmark hillside house as part of the Case Study architecture programme. Staple of every Japanese noodle bar and some Japanese dining tables. Up your sesame seed intake and add joy to all sorts of meals!

39.SESAME SEED GRINDER

I’ve designed a few chopping boards over the years, they’re simple things that kitchens always need a few of. Good for chopping and good for serving. Small is beautiful (via E.F. Schumacher).

40.SMALL CHOPPER

When I first bought these, my wife recognised them

41.SPANISH HOOK

59 immediately as something that typically line the walls of Spanish school halls. Super-sweet simple steel pressing with a no-nonsense coating of zinc, to stop your collars getting rust-stained. Listed as ‘citrus pruners’ in the wholesaler’s catalogue, but obviously suitable for any of your more delicate garden trimming activities.

42.SPANISH PRUNERS

I bought these untested, fully expecting them to function well and liking the look of them, but thinking the handle might not be so comfortable? It turns out they are really comfortable, and of course perform perfectly. I guess they’re an old item still in production from the days before injection moulding became so ubiquitous in our lives.

43.SPANISH SCISSORS

Another Spanish item! I should explain the number of Spanish items here. My wife is Spanish, so we visit Spain quite regularly and l’m always on the look out for interesting hardware, cookware, stationery shops, etc. In 2025, I was invited to make some sort of installation at SCP’s Shoreditch superstore. It prompted the purchase of a secondhand market traders stall and setting up as ‘Spanish Heavy’ for the week. I’ve kept most of the items in the shop since, including this handsome garden hose holder. 44.GARDEN HOSE HOLDER

In 2024, I was invited by Duncan Riches and Tokyobike to design a small exhibition of Sori Yanagi items in the Shoreditch store. At the first meeting, chatting about our mutual respect for Sori Yanagi, his philosophy and objects, I suggested that an exhibition wasn’t enough and that we should start an Appreciation Society. It became the title of the exhibition, and the following year the title of the world’s first publication on the work of Sori Yanagi not published in Japan. So I added the book to WMP and later thought I’d love to include an item of his, too. I now stock his tongs, a small ladle and a serving spoon. Tokyobike have most of his other items, including some quite rare dead-stock can openers.

45.SORI YANAGI ITEMS

First designed and made over 20 years ago, redesigned and relaunched this year by Stafford Schmool. It’s a contemporary classic of door accessories and manages to deftly walk a line that could easily fall into the joke shop kind of world of objects, but manages to stay the right side. Any colour you like as long as it’s yellow. (Henry Ford?)

46.SWISS DOOR STOP

I made the first prototype of this for my last studio, which I shared for 13 years with Swiss graphic design maestro Laurent Benner. A second prototype ended up in the toilet of Leila’s café, somewhere I’ve made a lot of the furniture and fittings for, over the years. It only got developed 20 years later, once I’d got WMP up and running.

NOTES

47.TANDT LOO ROLL HOLDER

Essentially this is a celebration of the Douglas fir tree. Trees are majestic things, and the Douglas fir is a kind of king of trees, growing up to 100 metres tall, 5Mø and often living for a thousand years or more. It makes beautiful wood and plywood, and ranks at the very top of the carbon dioxide absorbing charts. The T-shirt’s printed using PVC-free ink on organic cotton jersey. 48.TEE SHIRT

German-born American artist and Bauhaus tutor.

JOSEF ALBERS

ROY AYERS American jazz, funk and soul artist, composer, and music producer.

Swiss, London-based, graphic designer and drummer.

LAURENT BENNER

Designer and CEO of Brinkworth, skateboarder.

ADAM BRINKWORTH

ANTHONY BURRILL

Chinese philosopher / sage.

CONFUCIUS

American design duo. Massive.

CHARLES & RAY EAMES

Italian motor racing driver, founder of the Ferrari GP motor racing team, and subsequently car maker.

ENZO FERRARI

HENRY FORD

I make these in two sizes, they utilise the logic of laser cutting and folding metal sheet, two processes that amiably co-exist. They grew out of an installation I made in 2017 with graphic artist Anthony Burrill. They’re suggestive of a set square, and only available in orange. 49.TRIANGLE

Brackets and similar types of hardware, stripped back to their essentials; they’re very similar to tools. I’ve often advocated that tools are the best examples of design; no-nonsense, kind-of un-designed, evolved through use and ergonomics. That’s kind of what I aim to do in my work, and perhaps this simple bracket is the ultimate example. They’re powder coated, red or dark grey.

50.UNO

A very everyday spun and perforated aluminium colander. I discovered this via a Korean friend and her photos of a kitchenware market in Seoul.

51.YUNO

A small small side table made from off-cuts of oak for the top and feet. The central part is made from reclaimed fat birch ply, with a wash of fluro pink or yellow stain. The top is just big enough for a book and a glass. Small and flexible, like Olga Korbut.

52.ZURITO

British graphic artist.

Highly inventive industrialist and car maker.

Italian automobile designer and engineer.

DANTE GIACOSA

Hungarian born British architect and designer.

ERNÖ GOLDFINGER

Young Dutch / British architect and designer.

OLIVER HAWKES

Young British product and furniture designer.

KITTY HISCOX

Belarusian Olympic gymnast.

OLGA KORBUT

British food specialist, proprietor of Leila’s Shop.

LEILA MCALISTER

Belgian, regarded as the greatest rider in the history of cycling.

EDDY MERCKX

Zanzibar born lead singer of Queen, known for his flamboyant persona and four-octave vocal range.

FREDDIE MERCURY

Portuguese-born Brazilian singer, dancer and actress.

CARMEN MIRANDA

Eminent British industrial designer.

JASPER MORRISON

Danish inventor and entrepreneur.

KEN MUFF LASSEN

Creative strategist and wordsmith.

DUNCAN RICHES

Economist and author of Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered.

E F SCHUMACHER

Young English product designer.

DAVID SEARCY

STAFFORD SCHMOOL English designer,

collector and storyteller.

Austrian furniture manufacturer and engineer.

MICHAEL THONET

SORI YANAGI

Michael EVERYTHING Marriots Kioskö INDEPENDENT

Legendary Japanese designer.

Words DAN DE FREITAS @ SLOW TONGUES

Illustrations SAMME SNOW

KIOSK’S GUIDE TO SHEPHERD’S BUSH MARKET Shepherd’s Bush Market stands proud in a city that has long since abandoned many markets. An actual community hub that caters for all needs, whether Indian gold, fresh fish or fashion (it was once home to Global Sports, the trainer shop for 90s and 00s Londoners). I bought my first puffer jacket here aged eight, when desperately trying to look like Jason Orange. And I still return to eat, drink and sit. All before heading to my beloved QPR. Routine and rituals. Oasis juices and Sam’s sandwiches. Spaces like these need support, punters and protectors. As ever, there’s much more than can fit in a guide, so accept this as an invitation to explore this pocket of inner-city west London as your feet and tongues see fit. Taste slowly, look both ways and enjoy.

SLOW TONGUES is a platform dedicated to food. From the pleasure of tasting to the stories of those that feed us. You can listen to our show on Voices Radio, where our guests transport us into their world via five dishes, all paired to music. Think Desert Island Discs x Chef’s Table. @SlowTongues DAN DE FREITAS is a Shepherd’s Bush native, and son of a dad who puts fenugreek in everything.

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1. FALAFEL HUT 2. DELINA ETHIOPIAN 3. INTERNATIONAL CASH & CARRY 4. BROTHERS & COUSINS FISHMONGER 5. OASIS JUICE BAR 6. ASIAN HARVEST 7. STRAWBERRY HILL FRUIT & VEG 8. BUSH THEATRE 9. THE GRILL MASTER 10. MR FALAFEL 11. PIGMENT PRESS 12. SAMS SANDWICHES

Words FLYNN DEVINE

We need INDY BUSINESSES and CREATIVES to use AI, here’s why: Ask anything Please, ask anything Honestly, anything I’m here to help Let me help KIOSK MAGAZINE

65 All websites look identical, the banking customer support on the phone makes the same sycophantic quip as the internet provider one did last week, the writing in the magazine you’re holding right now has a strange bland tone to it, a hollow enthusiasm that rings of productivity building LinkedIn posts but with slightly more dramatic prose. This is one future with Artificial Intelligence: a truly incredible technology that is shaping our world in so many amazing ways and yet simultaneously risks driving much of our culture, thinking and work-lives towards a bland centre ground full of over-dependence, unoriginal thinking and em dashes.

Some early signs are already here, and for independent makers and builders – the people who do what they do precisely because they care about building something differently – the temptation might be to want nothing to do with it. But, actively choosing to opt out of this technology (if that’s even possible) isn’t just a bad business move, it’s a retreat from the future; a fait accompli that imagines this numb world is unavoidable. It was creatives and storytellers who laid out over generations our collective concepts of technologically driven dystopia, tropes many still cling to as they push back against AI progress. But it was also these imagineers that put forward a different future – one of abundance, fulfilment and technologically enabled discovery – a vision that drives many at the helm of these mammoth companies today. This is exactly why we need these sorts of thinkers and makers to be in the game. For many independent builders and creatives, the idea of AI becoming a key pillar in their ways of working might feel challenging to what they believe in. It might not just be that icky sensation when it feels like this technology is trying to do your craft for you, but the current configuration of the AI economy doesn’t always feel like it’s benefiting smaller, independent businesses. Most of the influence and power is concentrated in the hands of a few huge incumbents and if you’re a company honing an approach, developing unique offerings for your customers, or promoting more sustainable or ethical practices, then the headlines about massive wealth

concentration, negative climate impacts and a technology that could replace human labour and creativity might just feel wrong. While these systemic concerns are valid, the future will be written one way or another and right now is the time that will dictate who plays a role. Although these foundation models (things like ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini) are being developed by Silicon Valley tech companies, it’s not just Big Tech that will decide our future. Technological diffusion – the ways we decide to use a technology – is what will largely dictate what the next decades look like. Who better to play a key role in this than the bold, independent, and creative minds of this world who take leaps, imagine new possibilities and serve something new for people to use in their lives? Some of the people who may shudder at the thought of making AI a core part of their businesses or daily routine need to recognise that they’re exactly the kinds of people who could help build an empowering future with this technology. Not only through what we choose to create, but how we choose to use these new tools. It’s not just writing and image generation that are possible, but the ability to imagine new ideas and bring them to life seamlessly. This enhances the agency of independent makers like little else today. You no longer have to be a coder or designer to explore new ways for customers to engage with your products online through novel interfaces. You no longer need to be a web developer to build totally customisable websites that stand out against a sea of Wix-generated EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

templates. You no longer need an entire bizops team to make your workstreams five times more efficient. You can move faster on new ideas than ever before and communicate them with your customers in ways that simply weren’t possible without this tech. Coding tools, design tools, business support tools, personalised training and upskilling, all of these things are at your fingertips if you take a closer look and just start experimenting. However, you may be reading this and thinking of your web designer friend and your app developer roommate – wouldn’t this just be pulling the rug out from other creatives or small businesses? Well, in some ways yes and in some ways no. First, AI, like all technology, is a tool that you choose how to use. Treat this tech like a bridge, one that takes you from nothing to something and means a lack of marketing budget or development funding isn’t stopping that brilliant idea from coming to the world. Once you’ve made what you need, shift how you work and funnel that money towards the economies, makers and companies you want to support. AI doesn’t have to be a tool of replacement, it can be a tool of empowerment when used with purpose. Second, you could argue that today, while some work may be reallocated, it’s makers and creatives working on new things that are going to flourish. Jobs will start to be automated away, tasks will start to fall on AI agents where they were once done by humans, but in a society that often feels like it’s spent decades slowly degrading

We Need Independents & Creatives to Use AI

“For many independent builders and creatives, the idea of AI becoming a key pillar in their ways of working might feel challenging to what they believe in. It might not just be that icky sensation when it feels like this technology is trying to do your craft for you, but the current configuration of the AI economy doesn’t always feel like it’s benefiting smaller, independent businesses”

Please.

the value of creative work and independent builders, it’s these entrepreneurs and curious minds who will now likely be most insulated from the transitions ahead. Filing paperwork and monotonously going through the same workflow a hundred times a day will probably be automated, but in a world of new products, new ways of working and new socio-economic relationships, we’re clearly going to need storytellers, creators and innovators to help shape what this all looks like. Imagination isn’t becoming less valuable, it’s quickly becoming the most valuable asset someone can have. Like all tools, though, this is a double-edged sword. With the ability to create things in minutes, the social media mogul and the evening entrepreneur are on the rise; a sea of AI-slop and quick-buck ‘startups’ claiming to have solved a huge problem or offer totally unique solutions. But, this is exactly why we need genuine thinkers working to provide interesting ideas for their customers and cut through the noise with innovative new thinking. If it’s not the innovative and creative builders leading the frontier, bedroom hackers on X will lead the conversation on what AI can offer. As for power concentration and a fear of large incumbents owning your whole technical system, as users of this technology you have some influence to shape how

markets develop – something you also sit back on if you ‘opt out’. Going open-source – using models, tools and products where everything about them is free and openly accessible – is one solution. You can host these models yourselves or even come together with others in your communities to think about AI tools that could collectively serve you; there are communities of artists and activists out there right now imaging new futures for the models they use. A growing demand for more open-source options drives more builders to develop frontier offerings in this space and if you open-source the things you make, then the whole ecosystem grows with other independents able to use what you’ve developed and make it their own. We’re in a moment where the future could go in many directions. In some of these, AI strips the economy and society or smaller interesting artisans and business owners and drives us head first towards a void of creativity. Sadly, while there’s many truly incredible people working in the companies driving this technology, the incentive structures behind these organisations and the collective imagination of the markets means an automated, disempowering and, frankly, boring future could be one coming down the road – corrupting the utopian vision of ubiquitous intelligence that have driven much of this development. If this is KIOSK MAGAZINE

a possible future, it’s not a David vs Goliath tale of small builders against giant tech companies, it’s humanity against a bad future, something everyone – no matter the size of your organisation – can agree is important. Who knows more about breaking barriers, thinking outside the box and holding on to a bold vision when tested with outside pressures than artists, creators and builders making their own way? The time to act is now. This technology is only accelerating, developing and changing faster as time goes on and society’s race to adopt AI into every facet of our lives is well and truly under way. We don’t have decades to pull up and head towards a brighter future, we have years. This is exactly why we need independent and bold creators to build new things, work with these companies to help expand how they approach the technology they’re developing, and show us all what a great future with this technology could look like. If it’s outlier thinkers and builders who brought us the ideas of a world with new tools at our disposal, we need those very same creators helping shape the world we’re heading towards now.

FLYNN DEVINE is an AI researcher and builder currently working on policy for public interest technology.

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71 In the early noughties, 2004 to be precise, a video shop suitably named The Film Shop, opened on Broadway Market. East London was a much sparser space in those days. You could feel the barren emptiness in discarded warehouses, and the old children's hospital waiting to be demolished. Over the road from The Film Shop was (and still is) The Dove pub, where regardless of the Mad Max-like landscape I’m trying to evoke, you could order yourself an ostrich burger and a strawberry beer. It was still east London – even in 2004. In fact, before The Film Shop opened, a visit to The Dove was, as far as I can remember, the only thing you could do on Broadway Market other than be sold a stolen car radio, if you were lucky enough to cross paths with the man who had stolen the car radio.

The Film Shop was a godsend for an aspiring cinephile such as myself, a small shop with a minimal yet carefully curated selection of important films and a begrudging handful of Hollywood titles to pay the business rates. ‘Aspiring’ is the operative word here because as much as my intentions were to walk in and pick out a John Cassavetes film or a Michael Haneke blooper reel compilation, if I was honest with myself, what I really wanted on a rainy Tuesday was the processed comfort of the latest Ben Stiller/Jennifer Aniston romcom Along Came Polly. Back in 2004, we consumed culture in a much slower and more considered way, and to access it we needed to get past the gatekeepers – also known as The Staff. The Staff took on mythical status. EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

“ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT ME TO GET ALONG CAME POLLY?”

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choose to wait and see if they would play the song again, or you could travel to a shop and seek it out for yourself. There you would be greeted by a (potentially dismissive) hot arbiter of taste and possibly buy something that met their approval instead of what you actually wanted, or you could manage to hold your nerve and go home happy. One thing leads to another, much like the movie Koyaanisqatsi (a film I rented with How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days). I don’t want to sound like a giant hippy but art in both its creation and consumption is “all about the journey, man”. The mistake the digital world is making with its algorithmic nature is its eagerness to deliver you what it thinks it knows you want as quickly as possible, in fear you will get bored and leave. Being challenged is not something to fear. Will Oldham said streaming music is akin to eating processed food. You feel like you’ve listened to something you like but you have not worked for it and so the experience will lack the nutrients to sustain you.

and as the final bite of the final cheeseburger turns sour and the credits roll on whatever I’m watching that I can’t remember because I was doomscrolling, I think it’s maybe time to go back to being dictated to by arbiters of taste. We need to return to a human framework that art and culture can travel through before it reaches the end user. We can’t trust people to know what they want. Look at most public vote results for reference.

On the artist side, the digital validation of a like or a heart is also akin to fast food. Once the endorphin rush has passed there is an emptiness, it’s a hunger that will never be satiated. If an artist works in isolation then the audience/viewer takes on a greater collaborative role. If you work in collaboration with people then the work is unique to the team no matter what singular vision may guide it. As an example, if you are a very single-minded and focused songwriter and you have hired Dennis, a man recently going through a divorce to play the bass on your songs (because it would be good for Dennis to get out the house), and you tell him to “Just play these four notes, any idiot could do it,” he can and he will, and you may not hear it to begin with but his processing of his divorce will be coming through those four notes. No GarageBand preset can do that for you. Not yet. These are all the reasons why I (a middle-aged man scared of obsolescence) demand we return to a more analogue approach when it comes to the way we consume the arts. We need to place some value on being human.

I listened to a podcast once where the songwriter Will Oldham aka Bonnie Prince Billy explained why he was so resistant to allowing his music to be put on to streaming services. How he didn’t want to lose the connection and work that went into not just making music but the way it was found and appreciated. He travelled all the way back to the construction workers who would have built the radio station, which then hired the DJs, who would source the music that you would eventually hear. You could then

When I pay myself this month it will be with the last of the money left in my business account. After 10 good years, things have slowed down. There is this romantic trope that if an artist sticks to his guns and persists and believes in their work they will see it eventually pay off. For me this came true. After 15 years working in various artistic disciplines I replaced kudos for cash. It is at this point where the film adaptation would usually end. They wouldn’t fast forwards 10 years to find an artist feeling creatively

“What are they like?” An encyclopedic knowledge of the artform also made them incredibly hot. The power their judgement wielded was immense. Each time I took my selection to the desk I wasn’t sure how much of it was to impress and be validated by them. The answer was fifty per cent. I developed a system. I used to walk in and confidently pick out Festen from the Dogme95 section. Then find Along Came Polly and pretend to call my ‘girlfriend’ on my 2004 Nokia 6610i in ear shot of the intimidating gatekeeper and say, “Are you sure you want me to get Along Came Polly ?”. Then I would give a “what are they like?” shrug as I dropped the titles on the desk. I really threw my fictional girlfriend under the bus. It created so many weird double bills: 120 Days of Sodom and Turner & Hooch. The Piano Teacher and Overboard; Funny Games and Beethoven. This technique could be repeated at any fast food restaurant of choice: “Are you really sure you need four double cheeseburgers?” These days, we don’t need to own our choices any more,

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stifled. Having had his work reproduced and found on Redbubble and Etsy while trying to maintain a business where Brexit and Donald Trump’s tariffs actively discourage any chance of success outside of the small pocket of the world he inhabits. Not to mention battling the existential threat of AI. I had spent this period of success wracked with guilt, feeling undeserving of the success and full of imposter syndrome. This guilt is the kind of luxury a person who, kind of, doesn’t really believe the good times are going to end would have. If I get another second chance, I won’t be wasting my time feeling such things. Before I go on, for full transparency I should admit that despite my urge to shun the algorithms my success was created using Instagram as my gallery. I got busy enough to need to move out of my living room and into a studio. The internet drove me here. However even 10 years ago, it felt like a far more innocent time. I always found it mad that this platform existed to sell without having to pay a commission, but the penalty now comes in other ways, audience restrictions and adverts, and I don’t feel like playing along. My friend S says the obvious thing to do is reduce my overheads and give up the studio. She is correct, of course. It

is the obvious thing to do. The fact that it is damp and possibly a death trap should be enough of a reason to do it. Unfortunately, artists are not prone to doing the obvious – and are also prone to the damp. It’s my duty as a Professional Artist to make the wrong decision. My studio is one of those London spaces that you really shouldn’t give up if you find yourself in them. Sure the basement might be a silent killer but the ground floor could double as a shop front. It’s not far from the Barbican. It’s a private landlord and not under threat of sudden rent hikes or evictions and, until recently, next door to a prominent art gallery. Nothing confirms you are going it alone in your artistic pursuits than opening up a studio next door to the gallery you had hoped would one day represent you. It would look pretty lazy on their part to just represent the neighbours. When artist friends drop by, I can read the envy in their eyes. They would jump at the chance of occupying such a space, and on a purely superficial level that is enough motivation for me to stay in the studio and go bankrupt. That isn’t all, though. There is some socially driven ideology that as an artist it’s important to occupy these spaces, that have an outlet on to the street. To offer passersby something more than

coffee shops and estate agents. A physical presence could offer other aspiring artists enough inspiration to make a go of it, too. I’m not holding on to the space because my ego is bruised and I want to make my friends jealous. I am doing it for the good of society! I’m old enough to remember a time when record shops were on the high street. As a teen with a DIY punk ethos I would shun these shops as mainstream but now think how mad it was that human creativity was being valued on the high street. Now those shops have been replaced with Primarks and JD Sports. Art in all its forms deserves more of a presence in the world, it needs to confront and challenge you, not be passively invited in. I often wonder, could an artist of singular vision like David Lynch exist today? If Twin Peaks wasn’t foisted upon us as one of only four TV watching options in the nineties? Will we get more artists like him if the public are not exposed to something unfamiliar? For this reason, I will continue paying the rent I can NO LONGER afford and stubbornly sit in my damp basement and work, in the hope that, maybe, somebody passing will be inspired to think: “This is a viable career!” and incrementally we can take over high streets everywhere.

"I often wonder, could an artist of singular vision like David Lynch exist today?"

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Tattoo Words ALICE SNAPE

the

High KIOSK MAGAZINE

could save

The number of tattoo shops in the UK has doubled over the last decade. How did a niche subculture become a pillar of the high street, and what does that transformation mean for the artists and business owners that make up the tattoo community? Writer ALICE SNAPE, ink fan and tattoo authority, finds out.

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78 part than it used to. “The tattoo sector doesn’t feel financially viable right now,” she tells me, “it’s hard on these streets.” Social media, she says, means that any “shit scratcher can become stratospheric from posting clickbait.” Before there were so many shops to compete with, Natasha was trying to build something, “push my work in a certain direction so I could be more selective about the things I chose to do.” But now? She’s creating work that doesn’t necessarily fulfil her like it used to. It’s not all doom and gloom, Natasha caveats, and she believes wholeheartedly that tattoos will forever have a home on the high street because it’s where they belong. “I can’t see them disappearing,” she says, “tattooing is a communal activity. You know, it’s super intimate with you and the client for long periods of time, but it’s also great to bounce off of other artists.” There are 289 tattoo shops in London. Tattoo artist Lal Hardy opened up one of the first back in 1979, in Muswell Hill in north London, when there were just a handful of others in the city. He’s become a legend in the industry and the name of Lal’s shop, New Wave, a premonition: the start of a surge. According to data, there were 1,637 tattoo shops in the UK in 2014; but by 2023, the number had grown to 3,394. Hardy has borne witness to each iteration of this industry. Back in the day, Lal tattooed all the punks and the teddy boys, “I was in that scene,” he tells me over the phone, where I imagine him leaning on the counter, surrounded by walls filled with flash designs. Does he think these figures paint the tattoo scene as it really is? I ask him, numbers rarely indicative of the intricate realities of an industry. “We’re a working-class shop, and people are finding it really difficult out there, really tough,” Lal says. Tattoos can be lifeaffirming but in this cost of living crisis, sadly, they cannot become an essential expenditure in everyone’s monthly outgoings. And Lal has noticed the pinch. “This week, I’ve got one customer,” he tells me. There’s another tattoo shop opened up down the road, too, and Lal knows they are attracting customers that would usually end up with him. Tattoo artist Natasha Jackson, who is 42, works from two tattoo shops in different areas of London: Black Palm in Wood Green and Latex Heart in London Fields. She wishes her style wasn’t dictated by the need for money, and it isn’t, not completely, but it plays much more of a

Natasha had a successful career as a footwear designer for Prada before she changed paths to become a tattoo artist, which means she has a unique vantage point on the changing face of the high street. “The high street itself is dead,” she asserts, “it’s on its last legs.” Back in 2006, in her previous life, she’d attended fashion seminars dissecting where fashion on the high street will be in five, ten years’ time, compared to online shopping. “For the high street to survive, it’s about creating theatre – something you can’t get online, something you can’t experience from home – and a tattoo shop has an amazing way of doing that.” Natasha has noticed more artists turning their living spaces into work spaces. “But I don’t want to invite everyone into my home, where I live,” she says. “So that will never be the case for me. I would always choose to work in a studio.” She can’t imagine you’d get that same excited flutter as you walk into someone’s home rather than a studio on the high street – that, she thinks, is the drama of the whole experience – that’s what makes it special. Self-described “tattoo nerd”, Ashley Jagdeo agrees. He grew up watching shows like Miami Ink and spent a decade working in marketing, quietly observing the huge rise in tattoos. He wanted to be part of that, he thought, but with him he’d bring a fresh perspective. When he opened The Circle in Soho in 2011, he wasn’t welcomed in the industry with open arms – historically the route to owning a tattoo shop was to be a tattooer first but KIOSK MAGAZINE

tradition cannot dictate the evolution of a booming industry, outsiders will look in to see what they might gain. “There were a lot of very traditional tattoo studios with a very traditional aesthetic,” Ashley tells me, “I wanted to open something that was totally different from that, combining art, fashion, books, homewear, literally anything that represented tattoo culture.” Since its inception, The Circle has become a hub of tattoo culture – “combining all elements the industry brings,” Ashley says. “It was Marmite back then, people either loved or hated the idea.” But more studios opened up following this model and Ashley says that people came to understand that he wasn’t looking to cash in on the industry, “but raise the profile of the community, cultures and subcultures that tattooing has to offer.” This makeover is why Ashley believes that tattoo shops have become respectable pillars in town centres. They’re “more accessible” with “less of a scary demeanour,” he says. He still thinks tattoos are an alternative subculture, though, but the way he’s packaged the experience appeals to the kind of people who might not have been exposed to tattoos before. “I love it when clients bring their parents or grandparents to have work done,” he smiles, “making it a family activity, which shows how ingrained in society it is now.”

I “

There was one tattoo shop in the small market town I grew up in; hidden away down a dingy alleyway. When we were 16, my friend and I tentatively stepped inside. It was 1999, and the only tattoos I’d ever seen were the football crest emblazoned on my uncle’s chest – near his heart, he’d tell me, as he clenched his fist near it – and the designs that snaked over the bodies of naked women on the front of the tattoo magazines that sat near the porn on the top shelf of my local newsagents. I’d stare up at them and not see myself looking back.

Tattoos Could Save the High Street “I want that one,” my friend whispered into my ear, pointing up to a fairy amongst the hundreds of tattoo designs that covered every inch of the walls. I’d later learn those designs are called “flash”, but my 16-yearold self stood there nervously, shuffling from foot to foot, wondering what might happen to my mate as that fairy was inked into her skin.

T t n a . ” W ne O

t a h

I didn’t get tattooed that day. My first came as student in the early noughties, a tiny dancing Alice in Wonderland on my lower back, it was known as a “tramp stamp” then – apparently still is as it’s come back into fashion, its derogatory name reclaimed and revived. Instagram wasn’t a thing, so I’d gone to the closest shop to my uni halls to be met with the faces of scary-looking men with beards. As I sat on a stool, the buzz of the machine filled my ears and I felt edgy and cool and ever so nervous because as much as I wanted the tattoo, I didn’t belong in that shop and the old bearded biker in his leather waist coat who was dragging the needle over my skin made me feel like I was out of place, didn’t quite belong...

That tattoo has since been covered by another layer of ink and a huge back piece travels from the nape of my neck, across my shoulders, down my ribs to my bum – on my body, I’m curating a collection of tattoos, piece by piece, like the art hanging on my walls at home. As my skin has become covered, it is easier to measure my tattoos not by how many there are, but what gaps are left to be filled – memories yet to be made. Because it’s far more than aesthetics; yes, with each tattoo my appearance has altered, but who I am inside has transformed with every addition, too – or in some ways it has brought something to the surface that was always there, becoming a bit more like the person I always wanted to be, at home in my own skin.

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Tattoos Could Save the High Street

“It makes you feel part of something”. As a heavily tattooed person, I’m also more and the sort of energy that makes me so going to call her Dorothy Joan,” said my at home in any tattoo shop no matter what safe and comfortable I imagine myself, mum, a nod to my grandma and all the it looks or feels like because I’ve earned it half-dressed, as Erin tattoos one of women who came before. And I took my – you can visually see my badges of honour. their abstract and illustrative blackwork dad to The Circle to get an ear piercing An old biker guy, like the one who did my designs on to my body. Erin’s bleached hair for his 71st birthday this year. I saw the first tattoo, who’s covered in ink of his own, is cut into a mullet; there’s a stud in each same excitement on his face that I feel on his neck, his hands, his face, his back, nostril and intricate black tattoos wind after every transformation – “I feel like will give me a nod of recognition because their way over their chest and down their it’s always been there,” he beamed. He there’s a kinship in knowing how it feels to arms. Erin sits, legs apart on a stool, their saw a glimpse into this world that I love so be tattooed for hours. But as I look back spa-like studio the ideal backdrop to our much and felt like he belonged there with on my more than 20 years of submitting conversation about the changing face of me. Which is exactly how a tattoo shop should feel. Everyone’s welcome here. myself to the needle of multiple different tattoo shops on the high street. tattoo artists in locations from London where I live, to Manchester, Glasgow, “Tattooing hasn’t historically been the Now you can find artists online and book even New York and beyond, the spaces most welcoming environment,” says ahead, I wonder if walk-in culture still in which I’ve become a new person have Erin, “it’s long been dominated by cis exists like it used to – tattoo shops don’t gone through a metamorphosis of their male artists, which can sometimes lead necessarily need to be physically present own. The old boys’ club mentality that to a lack of sensitivity towards people from on the high street to be discovered. “The once gate-kept the industry, slowly, but minority backgrounds.” Nine femme and accessibility of a walk-in studio, like The surely, dissipating along with the outdated non-binary artists work at Briar Rose, Circle, where the public can just freely attitudes that the tattooists own the there’s not one male artist, but that isn’t enter and browse, is something that can’t tattoo – therefore having some say in what intentional, says Erin, who describes be replicated anywhere else but the high happens to the body it’s inked onto. the studio as inclusive and accessible street,” asserts Ashley, passionately. – “we’ve got full access for wheelchair “Tattooing is more than a business, it’s Because I’d be just as welcome in the tattoo users, something that a lot of tattoo shops an artistic form spanning many different shops of today if my skin was as virgin as haven’t thought of, because maybe there’s cultures, so visiting a studio is like the day that I was born. Tattoos used to a step down or the toilet is upstairs.” Most entering a museum of wonderful and be exclusionary but now these places are importantly the studio is a “nurturing and interesting history.” centred around the clients, their comfort safe hub for the LGBTQIA+ community. and bodily autonomy at the heart of the I’m queer, and most of the artists here Natasha concurs, “You’re not gonna get process where it always should have been. are queer, too.” the same experience in someone’s home This is what I’m thinking as I walk into Briar that you will in a studio around other Rose in Hither Green in south east London It’s a world away from my first tattoo people. You get customers chatting with to meet its owner tattoo artist Erin who’s experience and perhaps because of that each other and making friends.” Those holding the door open for me as the smell of the tattoo industry appears to be thriving words of encouragement uttered between – what is that? patchouli, perhaps? hits my – opening up to anyone who would like to humans: “Does it hurt?” “Oh you’re doing senses. This monochrome space has the offer up their skin to be marked. really well.” It makes you feel part of ambient feeling of a spa, the scent, earthy something – “like you’re owning your shit, and comforting, isn’t overpowering like It’s an experience I’ve brought my own earning those stripes, a reason to actively Lush, which, not incidentally, is where Erin, family into, over the years, so they could come out and into another space.” who is 32 and uses the pronouns they and experience their own unique freeing. For them, used to work. That smell, Erin says, her 60th birthday, over a decade ago, my “That, right there, is what will keep us on “goes straight to your brain.” It’s meant sister and I booked my mum a tattoo the high streets,” concludes Natashsa. to relax you, help you feel cocooned and appointment at the (now-closed) Into And I couldn’t agree more. comforted. And it works its magic on me. You in Farringdon. We sat with her as an Erin leads me into the back room of Briar art deco style woman was tattooed on Alice Snape wrote the introductory essay Rose, where there are two tattoo beds to her chest, a life memory made, “I’m for Phaidon’s first tattoo title, Tattoo You. KIOSK MAGAZINE

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Terri Mercieca KIOSK MAGAZINE

Good things start with Happy Endings Terri Mercieca is a woman with a one-track mind: she’s been dreaming about ice cream for most of her 49 years. Born in Sydney, she came to Europe after more than 20 years learning her trade in fine dining establishments and, incredibly, doing a fellowship in chocolate studies. Happy Endings, her ice cream business, was a happy accident. Originally a sweet supper club in London in 2014 (five courses of desserts with a wine flight to match), a badly-timed excursion into street markets left Terri with 400 unsold ice creams sitting in a freezer – and no customers. A friend connected her with popular noodle joint Tonkotsu, and the unwanted ice creams made it on to their menu. From there, Happy Endings morphed from a dessert business into an ice cream enterprise, now sold in 137 locations across London and a few further-flung places. Their offering is a tightly edited list of a dozen superlative products, including things like ice cream sandwich The Naughty One, so delicious it might be illegal: miso salt caramel parfait between slices of chocolate Guinness cake and soy dulce de leche. 🤤

Kiosk’s James Bowthorpe sat down with Terri at Café Jikoni, newly opened at the V&A East Museum in Stratford, to talk about her experience and expertise in starting, growing and running a company with character and purpose. We discovered what fires her up and keeps her going, why dessert should come first on the menu and why creating an inclusive, sustainable workplace selling fairly priced products isn’t marketing BS, it’s just good business. EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

Breakfast with Kiosk

KIOSK: How do you create a good workplace? TERRI: Don’t be a cunt. That’s number one. You set the tone. Treat people fairly. What you give is what you get back. Make sure people get paid on time, make sure everyone feels safe at work and can be themselves. We have a manifesto that’s now part of our contract: in our job ads, we make it clear we don’t tolerate old-school hospitality behaviour – racism, homophobia, sexism. If it happens, we call it out, address it straight away, and that person may lose their job, or we might offer something educational. The other day I had an emotional moment during a food inspection. I was with the team, thanking them for making the space so clean and professional, and I just thought – I’ve been dreaming about this kind of workplace for so long, and we’ve achieved it. That sense of pride isn’t coming from the top down. You can’t tell people to keep it clean and then not clean yourself. You have to get down and scrub. Be part of it. It’s not just about being nice for the sake of it – it has purpose. Exactly. This isn’t just about ice cream, is it? It’s not. Ice cream is the medium. At times you question – is this meaningful? Should I be doing something more meaningful? But it is meaningful to people. One question that comes up in business planning is what problem are you solving? And I’m like, keeping dentists in business. Someone once reframed that question for me as: what value are you bringing? That’s so much better. Because then you can start talking about helping people make memories. And also we’re doing a really good quality product. A lot of our ingredients are regenerative – that’s helping with topsoil. We use free-range eggs from a women-owned business in Cornwall. It’s all part of an ecosystem. I went to Peru recently to visit the place that grows the cacao we use. We use single-origin bean-to-bar chocolate. And that trip was mind-blowing for me. The interdependence between people across the world is phenomenal, and I think we forget how much we all depend on each other. Standing there with the growers and the cooperative, I was asking myself, what are we actually bringing here? And the answer is: if we buy really good chocolate that’s grown regeneratively, it keeps ancestral knowledge alive, it keeps people in decent work, and the cooperative gives them protection and support. The more good chocolate we buy, the more impact it has on them – and the better our food is. We can’t solve the entire global food industry – but what’s the best we can do? I think it’s about choice. You can choose where you spend your money. From the beginning, Happy Endings has always paid London Living Wage, and always bought the most ethical products we can. If you go into a business paying minimum wage and you tell yourself you’ll go up to London Living Wage when you can afford it, you’re never going to be able to afford it, because you haven’t set yourself up from the start the way you want to go on. A guy I met on the Peru trip has a craft chocolate company, he buys

100% cacao from single-origin sources and sells it as drinking chocolate. He told me he used to be nervous about marketing, nervous about putting his face out there and saying his opinions. But the message he got directly from the cacao farmers was: sell more chocolate. That’s all they want us to do. Because if you sell more good chocolate, and the infrastructure is there through a good supply chain, the farmers have stability and income. So our job on this side of the fence is to sell more fucking chocolate. But that means getting people to understand why it matters to spend a couple of extra pounds per kilo. Because right now chocolate is in a real crisis. Cocoa butter went up to £1,200 for 25 kilos: that was my most expensive ingredient going into my ice cream sandwich, from just one component. I could buy cheaper chocolate. But then what’s the point? That’s not supporting the industry. The reason my prices didn’t go through the roof is that the chocolate company I use has kept fairly steady prices. Because they’re regenerative, they pay well above fair trade price, and they operate on a stable price rather than a commodity fluctuation model. Meanwhile, big brands were going viral doing videos with cocoa butter like it was Versace. If they just think about it, they are part of the fucking problem. They bought shit chocolate for so long that they created this shit system. If you support a good system, these things level out. So: buy better stuff. Work it out, and communicate it to your customers. Explain why you’re doing it. That’s the hard part. You have to put your face to your opinion and say, this is what I believe. I obviously have a lot of opinions, especially about chocolate. Your customers respond to that? I think so. I try not to do it in a way that makes me sound better than anyone, because I’m not. I eat a Mars bar sometimes. How important was it to have a fun name for your business? It’s such a good name. I’ve got my girlfriend Ellie to thank for it. We were troubleshooting names for the supper club, and it had to have this slightly cheeky energy. Knock on the door and you think it’s a brothel, but actually it’s a dessert bar. New York crossed with Hong Kong, kind of In the Mood for Love vibes. Low lighting, clandestine, a little bit secret. We all want one, don’t we? If you can’t have one, an ice cream is fine. Why did you want to set up in London specifically? Without any shade intended: I never wanted to live in England. As an Australian with a colonial history with Britain, it wasn’t something I particularly aspired to. I came to London a few times when I was younger and I really hated it. So cold. But I live here now and I have for fifteen years, and I love it. When I got out of the tourist trap of just being a visitor, it really made sense to me as a place to live and build a business. The community here is amazing, the restaurant community, what you can build – there are unbelievable opportunities. Did anyone help you or mentor you in that early period? My friend Matt was really helpful, he was a massive encourager, and he invested in the business early on. My friend Byron, too.

KIOSK MAGAZINE

EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

“The other day I had an emotional moment during a food inspection. I was with the team, thanking them for making the space so clean and professional, and I just thought – I’ve been dreaming about this kind of workplace for so long, and we’ve achieved it.”

KIOSK MAGAZINE

Breakfast with Kiosk I had some serious investors for a bit, who were also helpful. And then just building the community. If you’re not from here, you have to really put yourself out there: Twitter, Instagram, going to things, meeting people. I even did speed dating for business partners at one point. Look, I’ve done everything. I went and worked in the Middle East to get money together. I just did everything possible to get it going. And I’ve been working at it for 14 years now, with a lot of sacrifice, some really bad mental health moments along the way. It’s hard to have a business for that long. But it is totally worthwhile for me. I feel very happy that I’ve done this. What makes it feel worthwhile? My team. Knowing that people have their own journey with it. I work with such nice people, every single one of them is excellent. And I like the food that we make. I think it’s really thoughtful. It’s not the most groundbreaking food, but it’s very good for what it is, and it’s consistently excellent. That’s the goal: be consistent. Make sure people trust you. A lot of food businesses, once they reach a certain scale, start to quietly change their ingredients, or make the portions smaller – you would have to fight me. So hard. We actually made our ice cream sandwiches bigger recently. We used to pipe each mould individually and fill it slightly below the top for portion control. Then I thought; my team are piping every single mould one by one, when they could just pour and fill to the top, which is faster, easier on the wrists, and the customer gets more for the same price. The opposite of shrinkflation. We made sure every product was sized to be both easiest for the staff to achieve and best for the customer to experience. And actually, making it bigger made it taste better, too. People have tried to fight me on that stuff, and I’m like – I don’t care. I’m not doing it.

Is that something you’ve learned over time? I work with an amazing woman – she’s like a business consultant, but in a much more spiritual way – once or twice a month. She’s helped me a lot. Because whatever personal stuff you carry as a business owner, you will bring it into your business. Whatever your relationship to money is – that comes into the business. How you treat people – that comes into the business. With the chocolate company I was telling you about – they’re using chocolate as a means of conservation. And look at where we are right now, in this café. The people who created this place made a meeting place. People come here to see art, to see other people. The reason it exists isn’t only about cooking food and serving people. The café owners will know that what they’re creating isn’t just food. The food is the medium for everything else. Our whole thing is about creating physical spaces, and I’d argue our competitors aren’t really our peers in the industry – it’s Netflix and Deliveroo, because they want people to stay at home and have things delivered. That’s an interesting one, because people ask me who my competitors are – obviously other ice cream businesses. But really it’s any sweet snack. And actually, savoury food is our biggest competitor. Because savoury gets to go first. Every time. Every fucking person is having something savoury, and we might get ten per cent of the audience. Twenty-five per cent and I’d be thrilled. The dessert menu is optional – the waiter doesn’t come to the table at the start and say, “Would you like to see the desserts too, so you can save room?” You should see the dessert menu first.

What’s the next step for Happy Endings? Really consolidating everything we’ve been building. Getting a couple of small outside locations, some pop-ups, being really clear about where people can find us and buy our stuff. Just making sure the foundation of the business is as solid as it can be. Not thinking about it like a sausage factory! Let’s make sure what we’re doing is really good, the messaging is right, and we’re building our reputation. Growing the catering and wholesale side – tubs, scoops, puddings – to winter-proof the business, because winter is tough for us. We also hire out soft-serve machines, so that’s another arm. I don’t want to run around doing things all over the place, because then the energy disperses. The energy has to stay contained within the business so it can be as successful as possible. Because it’s its own thing now. It’s not me, it’s Happy Endings. It has its own vibe. That’s a big growth step, disconnecting yourself from the business. I’ve been working on that for the last couple of years. If I feel like I am the business, then if the business fails, I fail. But it’s not always up to me what the climate does, what Donald Trump decides, that’s out of my control. Before, I used to feel responsible for everything. But stepping back – I can control what I can control, and that’s it. Even then, you can’t really control it. You just have to be there to guide it. Keep it tidy.

EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

Words KIOSK.WORLD

Photography QOZEEM LAWAL

KIOSK MAGAZINE

Kiosk.World is growing: Kiosk Greenford Quay is our new space in west London. It’s a high street in miniature, featuring Greenford’s brightest local businesses, and has already hosted thousands of local people for events, workshops and activities, from Bollywood dance classes to craft markets, parent and baby drop-ins to karaoke and quiz nights. Greenford Quay sits at the heart of Greenford, connecting the two halves of the local area, offering a space for the community that is fully accessible, and where dogs and kids are welcome. We’ve got great neighbours, too: the remarkable Ealing Beaver Project is just a short swim down the canal, where you can see the first beaver colony to be introduced to London. Come and visit!

EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

Words KIOSK

“It’s a Very Good Time to be an Independent Publisher of Literary Fiction!”

KIOSK MAGAZINE

Featuring ROUGH TRADE BOOKS, CIPHER PRESS, JACARANDA BOOKS, PUSHKIN PRESS and PERSEPHONE BOOKS

There are more than 10,000 publishers in the UK – that means a lot of books to add to the pile on your bedside table. Instead of engaging with the algorithm for our next read, we went straight to the source and asked people across the world of independent publishing what they’re excited to share with readers this year. They were generous with their thoughts – and it’s no surprise: the best thing about independent publishers is an intimate and enthusiastic connection to the books they publish. Geographically diverse and free-wheeling in subject matter, here are five books to seek out in an independent bookshop or request from your local library – that’s a real thing, try it! EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

SONNY OWEN ROUGH TRADE BOOKS

JACK THOMPSON CIPHER PRESS

Rough Trade Books is a new publishing venture in the mould of the pioneering independent record label, bringing the same original spirit and radical direction to the world of book publishing. RTB’s Sonny Owen gives us the low down on Babak Ganjei’s novel (who you can also meet on page 70).

Cipher Press is an independent publisher that amplifies writing by queer and trans-identified authors. Launched in 2020, Cipher Press came about as a response to the lack of dedicated queer publishing in the UK and that there are so many queer voices still unheard and so many queer stories untold. Cipher’s Jack Thompson introduces In Out by Joe Conroy, published in October 2026.

ON THE BUS WITHOUT A PHONE BY BABAK GANJEI

IN OUT BY JOE CONROY

We’re no strangers to Babak’s work at Rough Trade Books. We’ve published two pamphlets of his before and behind me in the office right now is one of his prints, reading: “FILM IDEA: BALLS UP. A ROUTINE TESTICULAR CHECK BECOMES MORE THAN JASON STATHAM BARGAINED FOR WHEN HE REALISES THEY ARE NOT HIS TESTICLES”. Reading that, it will come as no surprise we’ve chosen to publish his debut novel: On The Bus Without A Phone.

We’re publishing this incredible debut in October. It landed in my inbox during our last open call for submissions, and I was instantly taken by Joe’s voice just from his email. I remember having to rush out at the time, and I had no intention of reading the manuscript but once I’d opened it, it was impossible to stop. His work is so propulsive and compelling, and wildly funny in a very dark, very twinky way. It follows an unnamed narrator in the run-up to the Brexit referendum as he slowly and dramatically unravels, having sex with random men in exchange for food, taking way too many drugs and drinking too much, and navigating the difficult relationship he has with his mother, ‘the Scouse trap.’

Taking place over the course of a bus journey en route to a first date, narrator Bob Green must soon face up to one of modern life’s great horrors: that he has forgotten his phone. It’s from this jumping-off point that Babak sets out to chart the endless panics, failures, nostalgias and humiliations that have peppered his life so far; flicking through the subconscious for hilarious and heartfelt episodes on adolescence, technology, race, a particularly memorable anecdote about an avocado, romantic comedies and word counts (this book comes to 29,416). When talking through the book with Babak, he explained the urge to rid his work of the phone’s ever-constant intrusions, ironically in On The Bus Without A Phone the phone itself becomes a central character only in its absence – and Bob Green finds himself suddenly alone with his thoughts, the bus and the moment. Babak also revealed the book was born out of his attempts at writing for television, and it carries this energy with its episodic comedic introspections and distinct voice, doubling as Babak’s own post-modern literary romcom of sorts.

Before we’d made an offer on the book, I ran into Joe at an event for another of our authors and was endeared to find him just like his narrator, though very much less unhinged. It’s been such a pleasure working with him these last few months as editor. We’ve met up and smoked cigarettes and drank coffee and talked though sticky points and character motivations and back stories. He’s a real treat to work with; when I make an editorial suggestion, he really runs with it and comes back with something completely brilliant and surprising. We’re almost there with the edit and I’m really excited for people to start reading it. There’s been loads of hype already, and we’re planning events, so look out for it in October.

KIOSK MAGAZINE

AFUA OFORI-DARKO JACARANDA BOOKS

MADDY BOBBIN PERSEPHONE BOOKS

Jacaranda Books is an independent press founded by Valerie Brandes in 2013, with a focus on publishing and elevating Black and diverse voices. Afua Ofori-Darko from Jacaranda’s editorial and rights team suggests adding Hot Water by Bhavika Govil to your book pile.

Persephone Books reprints neglected fiction and non-fiction, mostly by women writers and mostly dating from the mid-20th century. Often asked how the books are discovered, the answer is: in every way imaginable, including reader submissions of unaccountably out-of-print favourites.

HOT WATER BY BHAVIKA GOVIL

THE BLANK WALL BY ELISABETH SANXAY HOLDING

Hot Water is set in India and the primary voice of the story is a nine-year-old girl called Mira. It’s not quite a coming-of-age story, more an unravelling of her family’s story through her eyes: how her mother navigates the loss of her father and her brother’s sexuality, although Mira’s innocence keeps some of their truths obscured until their perspectives show up later. It’s an incredibly moving story, but also light and funny at times because of the insightful nature of young Mira. Her voice was really why the book stood out to us and why we had to acquire it. We were introduced to the author Bhavika Govil through her agent at Pontas. They also represent the writer of award-nominated These Letters End In Tears, also published by Jacaranda. They’re an agent that understands the books that sit well with us.

The novel follows Lucia Holley, a mother of two living in an isolated house in upstate New York during World War II, juggling wartime shortages, caring for her ageing father, and writing desperately cheerful letters to her husband on the front line. Her attempts to retain a sense of normality through this war are hindered when she becomes caught up in a series of murders, robberies and blackmail schemes. Above all else, Lucia wants to protect her 17-year-old daughter Bee, whose involvement with an insalubrious man called Ted Darby threatens to destroy her social standing and her innocence.

I do want to honour Sareeta Domingo, our late publishing director for fiction. I flagged the book and she was the one who pushed it through acquisitions and led the negotiations. She sadly passed very shortly after we met with the author. This book was truly led and helmed by Sareeta. The publishing house is named after the Jacaranda tree, which is found all over the world, much like the voices we want to amplify and share, voices of the global majority. When it comes to acquisitions, we’re very deliberate. We’re looking at what the marketing could look like, where we can sell their titles, what other countries might be interested, all before we’ve even acquired the book. We also hold open submission windows, at least once a year, because we understand that routes to literary agents and editorial support are harder for Black and diverse writers, and our aim is to make it as accessible as possible. It’s always our hope that we can be a home for an author, that we can journey with them, understand what they’re writing next, and what their desires are for their career. That depth of consideration, that intentionality around every book we take on, I think that’s something quite special to an independent.

The Blank Wall arguably subverts the precedents of the thriller as a genre, as it is not only suspenseful but intensely frustrating. We are both gripped by the twists and turns of the plot, but simultaneously weighed down by a deep sense of ennui, instilled in us by the fact that, should Lucia prevail against the criminals conspiring against her, she will merely be restoring her own cage. “All that had happened to her would be, must be, pushed down out of sight; the details of daily living would come like falling leaves to cover it. I don’t really know what’s happened to me, she thought, in wonder. I haven’t taken time to think about it. Maybe I never will. Or maybe, when I’m old, and have plenty of time and quiet.” But Lucia is a 1950s housewife, who will never have plenty of time and quiet; her home is simultaneously her existence, sense of meaning and prison. The Blank Wall is an intensely human work of literature that reels us in with its intricately woven plot but keeps us reading with its compelling explorations of what it means to love, how we express this love and the lengths we will go to protect those we love. Extracted from the essay ‘A Thriller of Ennui’ in The Persephone Pamphlet No. 4 Spring/Summer 2026

The Blank Wall was first published in 1947. EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

EMILY GOULDING PUSHKIN PRESS

Pushkin Press publishes the world’s best stories, to be read and read again. Founded in 1997, their list encompasses novels, nonfiction, crime, children’s books – everything from timeless classics to the urgent and contemporary.

RANGE BY DORTHE NORS The book I’m most excited about is Range by Dorthe Nors, and when we sat down as a team to think about what felt most quintessentially ‘Pushkin’ of our upcoming titles, this was the one. Dorthe has been with us for a while – she’s an award-winning novelist with story collections including Wild Swims and Karate Chop, and she was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize for Mirror, Shoulder, Signal – but this feels like her most ambitious work yet. It follows a woman called Gunn Haven, a professor of astrophysics who takes leave from her university and moves back to the rural landscape of her upbringing to study the sky. On the surface it’s about space, but really it’s about middle-aged womanhood beyond the norms of motherhood; what life looks like when you don’t take that path, and what you find when you strip everything back to just yourself and the stars. There’s a star called Betelgeuse that takes on a role of this menopausal guide throughout, which gives you a real sense of the tone: it’s profound and genuinely moving, but also wryly funny. The neighbours she wasn’t expecting to have, the menacing landowner who keeps catching her on her property, the mother and daughter she ends up helping, it all builds into something layered and surprising. Dorthe has this ability to reflect enormous ideas about life and time and belonging through the intimate and the everyday, and in this book the sky almost becomes a mirror for everything happening on the ground. It’s translated from the Danish – the majority of what we publish at Pushkin is in translation, across literary fiction, crime, rediscovered classics and our children’s imprint. I’m in publicity, but I get to sit in acquisitions meetings and genuinely have a say. It’s a wholecompany approach; everyone believes in every book we put out, and that passion really comes through. That’s part of what makes being an independent so special. Last week, we won Independent Publisher of the Year at the Nibbies, for the second time. So I’d say it’s a very good time to be an independent publisher of literary fiction! KIOSK MAGAZINE

ME AN W H ILE ,

FOR E V ER

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Words Dr FLO We know it’s hard running your own business, so we’ve asked Psychodynamic Psychotherapist Dr Flo to set up her couch in our office and address your issues in her Retail Therapy column. Lie back and think of your bottom line…

Retail Therapy

KIOSK MAGAZINE

97 You are all un-hip. Embrace that, enjoy your colleague, and the fact that you no longer feel the need to hurt their feelings.

What psychological tricks can I use to get people who visit my shop to buy the really expensive items? Maybe you could use some psychological tricks (therapy?) to give you confidence in what you are selling. Has ‘tricking’ been a strategy you’ve felt you needed to persuade people to buy your items? Or maybe it goes deeper; have you always felt it necessary to trick people into being interested in what you have to offer? Surely your ‘really expensive’ items are really good quality? If that is the case, no tricks are needed! But if you are tricking them into buying expensive items that are junk, I suggest you lower the prices, get new stock, and take stock. How do I stop my designs getting ripped off by evil people on Etsy? Stop designing. We are a small hip design company and how we present ourselves is very important. One of my team is – there’s no other way to say it – very uncool. How can I encourage them to get a haircut and wear better outfits without hurting their feelings? If your company designs small hips, it sounds like you have a skewed view of the market. People needing hip replacements don’t care if one of your team is uncool with a bad haircut. I’m sure they will be impressed that he has hair! If I have misunderstood your question and you mean you have a modern up-to-date company and have described it using a word from the 1960s, I also think you are fine.

Am I morally superior because I am running an independent business or is this an illusion I’ve created to keep myself going? Morally superior to who? But perhaps that isn’t the main thing to focus on here. What interests and concerns me more is that you wrote that feeling morally superior keeps you going. How do you feel about your independent business? Perhaps it is excruciatingly boring, too much work, or not fulfilling your needs (except the need to feel morally superior)? Perhaps you are consciously or unconsciously doing it to fulfil someone else’s needs, a parent, a partner? Or is it that you find it hard generally to keep going and are depressed? I suggest you find someone professional to speak to if that’s the case. Hopefully, with time and the right kind of attention, you will be able to feel moral, without the need to feel superior. We have won a contract with a new client, but they are knocking us down on price – they say this contract will look great on our website and lead to more work, is this true? You have written to a therapist, not a life coach or a tarot reader, and therapists are always aware that when they give advice it makes pretty much zero difference: people tend to make the decisions they will make. But it sounds like you are worried about your own capacity to do that. Do I sense a lack of confidence, fear of the unknown, panic, anxiety? You use the term “knocking us down” as if you are really scared of the new client and their destructive influence. The reality, perhaps, is much more benign. Try to find as many certainties in the situation as possible, use them and your own gut to make a decision, then hold on to your hat and try to enjoy the ride! I really enjoy my work, but I can’t pay myself much yet and so I feel like I’m cheating myself when I take a break, as that cuts into my revenue. Should I take a lunch break or just push on? The breaks are what you are working for. Are you cheating yourself when you take a break, or is there a bit of a destructive EVERYTHING INDEPENDENT

side taking hold which is doing the cheating, making you work at all costs? If you want to work effectively enough to enjoy your life outside of work and inside of it, give yourself time away from it. Relax, enjoy a noodle soup, secure in the sense that you are doing your mind, body and business a favour. I have to take some grain, a fox and a chicken to market next week – the logistics are starting to give me a headache and none of the usual couriers have a solution, help! DON’T PANIC! Take a paracetamol, lie on the couch, let’s take this slowly. This is a dream, right? If so, like in all dreams, all the characters – the fox, the chicken and the grain – are elements of yourself. There is the part that is the (sexual?) predator, the benign feeder and the part that is fed on but key to it all (you). In purely Freudian terms: Dad, Mum and Fantasy You. Perhaps you feel they need to be kept in their separate internal spaces and can’t be integrated because of the events you experienced growing up. I’m sure it’s nothing that five times a week on the couch for five years can’t fix. If this isn’t a dream but a real question, then take the chicken to market, come back to fetch the fox, bring the chicken back again so it doesn’t get eaten by the fox, bring the grain to market and go back for the chicken. It will take a while, but will be a lot faster and more reliable than most couriers… and some therapists! I have so many great ideas that I can’t settle on one; how do I know what will work and whittle down my brilliant concepts? Maybe it’s your ego that needs whittling down a touch. Confidence is important, but those who get on, and by getting on I mean maintaining healthy mental state while maintaining a healthy business, add a good old dose of doubt and reality to the equation. Are all your great ideas that great – for you? Sit down and decide which idea would allow you to enjoy spending your precious time developing it. Which one sparks a passion and will make you feel brilliant?

If you’d like to submit your problem for Dr Flo to tackle in Kiosk issue two please email: magazine@kiosk.world