Gift Guide: Art Looking for a unique gift for that notoriously hard-tobuy-for friend or relative? Then check out several of the Northwest’s best independent arts and crafts markets Words: Laura Maclean
C
hristmas shopping can be hard work. Like, really hard work. That’s why we’ve scoured Liverpool and Manchester’s independent shops, craft fairs and markets to bring you a roundup of the best places to buy truly individual presents this Christmas.
Best Christmas Craft Fairs in Manchester Start your Christmas gift hunt at The Little Northern Contemporary Craft Fair at Altrincham Town Hall on Sunday 6 December. With more than 40 carefully selected designermakers and artists, it’s the perfect place to find unique gifts for Christmas. And with a huge selection of homemade jewellery, fashion accessories and beautiful things for the home, you’ll find everything you need for a truly bespoke Christmas. Homemade gifts are always the most thoughtful, and if you head over to MadLab’s Crafty Christmas Workshop at Bolton Central Library on Friday 11 December, you’ll be taught how to make your own Christmas tree decoration that twinkles with LED lights. There’s a morning and afternoon session available, and children are welcome but they must be accompanied by an adult. Head over to Eventbrite to buy your ticket.
Liverpool's Winter Arts Market
As Christmas fast approaches, head out of the city centre to The Vintage Village in Stockport for The No Sleep Til Christmas Fair on Sunday 13 December. Expect festive fun with a vintage twist along with dozens of independent traders selling vintage clothing, jewellery, vinyl and other unique trinkets. Entry is £2 and if you walk through the door when the egg timer goes off, you’ll win a random gift! Alternatively, pop into the Off the High Street Christmas market in Radcliffe for a range of unique artisan gifts, arts and crafts and the best of local food and drink. It’s held in a big marquee to protect visitors from the winter weather and takes place every Thursday, Friday and Saturday for the last three weekends before Christmas, so even the most last-minute of lastminute shoppers needn’t miss out! If you’re on the lookout for unique Christmas presents in Manchester city centre, pay a visit to SWAG, a brand new pop-up shop on the corner of Oldham Street and Hilton Street in the Northern Quarter. SWAG stands for ‘Shop Workspace Art Gallery’ and all the clothing, artworks and gifts are handmade by local creatives. The shop’s open Tuesday to Sunday up until Christmas but if it does well, there’s a good chance it’ll be sticking around much longer. And don’t forget the Manchester Craft and Design Centre, home to two floors of studio boutiques selling contemporary jewellery,
ceramics and art. Just a stone’s throw from the hustle and bustle of Market Street and the Arndale Centre, it’s the perfect place for an altogether different shopping experience.
Best Christmas Craft Fairs in Liverpool If you’re based in Liverpool, don’t miss the Winter Arts Market in one of Liverpool’s most iconic buildings – St George’s Hall. Taking place on Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 December, it’s Merseyside’s largest arts and crafts market and the perfect place to pick up unique handmade gifts for hard-to-buy-for family and friends. Featuring work from over 200 artists, designers and makers, you’ll find everything from homemade jewellery and vintage clothing to paintings, decorations and cards in a stunning setting. Constellations is Liverpool’s go-to place for independent fare, and you’ll find Capstan’s Bazaar’s Free Pop-Up Festive Arts and Crafts Market there on Sunday 13 December. This family-friendly winter market will play host to a wide selection of intriguing and artistic stalls with a diverse selection of makers selling creative clothing, creative crafts and seasonal gifts, making it the perfect opportunity to find a Christmas present like no other. Or perhaps you’re looking for unique gift for a bookworm close to your heart; head to
Reid of Liverpool, an old-fashioned bookshop in Liverpool city centre, for old books on a variety of subjects and a lovely selection of Christmas treats laid out for the customers. If the Baltic Triangle is one of your regular hangouts, don’t miss the Winter Wonderland event at the Great Baltic Warehouse. Run by Independent Liverpool, it takes place on 11-13 December and will be a haven of festivities from the city’s best mince pie bakers and fake snow to Christmas hampers and unique gifts made by local artists and makers. Some final shouts: in this time of consumption and waste, why not make your present ecofriendly? BeeCycle on Albert Dock offers a great selection of beautifully designed green gifts, from the educational (a Wiggo Composting Pod, perfect for kids curious about what happens to their leftovers) to the decorative (undeniably cute Mr Turf grass-hair-growing figurines) and the clever (if you've a friend who loves to garden but lives in a pokey flat, the Grote Wall Garden Pouch is a neat and tidy compromise). And as a last suggestion, pop into the Bluecoat Display Centre while you’re shopping in the city centre for homemade jewellery and ceramics by local artists. More gift ideas at theskinny.co.uk/art
Gift Guide: DVD Nothing says “I’m apathetic towards your existence” more that an Amazon Gift Card. Show that cinephile in your life that you care by popping some of these movies into their Christmas stocking Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation & Spy (For those with James Bond fatigue) The 007 series felt a bit tired with latest instalment Spectre, but it looks dead on its feet when compared to these two espionage offshoots. In the latest Mission: Impossible movie, Tom Cruise elevates the stunt to the kind of death-defying art form that Buster Keaton used to specialise in, but we also get Hitchcockian suspense (a dizzying assassination attempt at the Vienna Opera), a heart-in-mouth motorbike chase and a female love interest more badass than our hero. Similarly, Spy suggests that Moneypenny might be the match for Bond as Melissa McCarthy plays a CIA desk jockey thrown into a deadly field assignment. And anyone disappointed with Christoph Waltz’s limp baddie in Spectre should get a kick out of Rose Byrne as a catty Bulgarian super-villain with an Amy Winehouse barnet and a bag full of bitchy putdowns. Released on DVD and Blu-ray by Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox respectively
The Shôhei Imamura Masterpiece Collection (For lovers of debauched cinema) Shôhei Imamura is Japan’s greatest post-war director but his films
December 2015
Words: Jamie Dunn
are too seldom seen. This eight-film box set is a perfect introduction. Far removed from the serenity of Ozu and Mizoguchi, Imamura’s films are rambunctious and dazzling, concerned with sex, violence and the lives of Japan’s underclass of hookers and hustlers. Imamura summarised his career more succinctly: “I am interested in the relationship of the lower part of the human body and the lower part of the social structure.” Released on DVD and Blu-ray by Eureka Entertainment
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension & Zardoz (For cultists) What is a cult movie? Judging from rep cinema screenings and Netflix’s search function, just about anything that’s off-beat from the mainstream. True cult movies, however, aren’t just left-field, they’re playing a whole different ballgame on a patch of dirt two fields over. In Buckaroo Banzai, as the title suggests, we follow a sci-fi polymath (speed racer, physicist, brain surgeon, jazz-funk star) across another dimension, while Zardoz (the crazy passion project John Boorman was allowed to make after the success of Deliverance) sees Sean Connery’s Zed, a barbarian in a proto-mankini, upend a society of immortals. The joy of both films is immersing yourself in the myth and lore of the batshit-crazy
worlds in which they take place. Both released on DVD and Blu-ray by Arrow Films
Mad Max: Fury Road & John Wick (For old-school action fans) Seeing real people fight or fly through the air is more rousing than watching pixels do the same. But experiencing a modern-day action film (say a Marvel movie or enduring Peter Jackson’s Hobbit series) feels less like cinema and more like looking over the shoulder of someone else playing a video game. The genre got a shot in the arm in 2015, however, with these two action movie masterworks. In Fury Road, George Miller seamlessly and thrillingly marries 21st-century digital filmmaking with the stunt work he mastered on Mad Max and The Road Warrior. Assassin revenge yarn John Wick, meanwhile, is a gorgeous martial arts ballet that doesn’t hide its choreography with cut-up editing. Both released on DVD and Blu-ray by Warner Home Video
GIFT GUIDES
La Grande Bouffe (For those looking for the true Christmas spirit) Forget It’s a Wonderful Life – Marco Ferreri’s debauched black comedy is the ultimate Christmas
movie. Think about it: four men hole themselves up in a Parisian villa and gorge themselves to death on gourmet delights. Its consumerist excess has more in common with Christmas than Jimmy Stewart’s humble altruism. Turn it on after you’ve polished off your tenth mince pie and enjoy two hours of the kind of gluttony that would have Dionysus reaching for the Alka-Seltzer. Released on DVD and Blu-ray by Arrow Films
The DUFF & Dope (For fans of coming-of-age films with bite) Two fresh and joyous teen movies came and went at UK cinemas with little fanfare this year, but both deserve an audience on DVD. The DUFF seems to hit every teen movie cliche before subverting each with wit and verve, while Dope chronicles a geeky, middle-class black teen’s attempt to reinvent himself as a gangster when he comes into the possession of a bag of narcotics. What makes both films sing is their knockout casts. Arrested Development’s Mae Whitman exudes charm and screwball smarts in the former while the performances by the ensemble of newcomers in the latter are as colourful as their characters’ 90s hip-hop-fetishising apparel. Released on DVD and Blu-ray by E1 Ent and Sony Pictures Home Ent respectively
Lifestyle
31