I love jewellery, beauty products, stationery and jeans, so whenever I go anywhere those are the things I make a beeline for first. I was in the UK last week and got my fix of everything I love.
For stationery I went to the Filofax shop in Conduit Street, and the one in Covent Garden (which is now, sadly, all boarded up, having closed about a year ago), Paperchase in Tottenham Court Road and Artbox in Covent Garden. I stopped at every Filofax, Aspinal and Smythson concession in the big department stores. I also went to Kate Spade in Covent Garden.
My favourite of all was the Filofax shop in Conduit Street – they had a really nice sale on with gorgeous binders for up to 70% off. There were so many Maldens on sale for half price it was all I could do to stop myself buying a few. But nope, I stuck to my Bromley Travel Wallet and the Pocket Amethyst Deco. I also bought 2013 and 2014 Time Management inserts. The range of inserts available at the Filofax shop was amazing and the sales assistants were marvelous – patient, knowledgeable and let you inspect the rings and the leather before you buy.
At the Kate Spade shop in Covent Garden I found they don’t carry organisers anymore. Because they did not receive 2014 inserts they sent all their binders to the Bicester Outlet. Not sure when that was but it may be worthwhile giving them a ring if you are after a cheap Kate Spade Binder. Here are the contact details
Paperchase had lovely own-brand organizers – I was particularly enamoured of the turquoise tooled leather A5 and a Butterfly personal. I sped very quickly into and out of Aspinal and Smythson because I usually only buy on sale and everything was full price. I went into Muji to buy a rubber (the last of the big spenders, thats me!) but didn’t look further as there a fairly big Muji in Sweden.
The Filofax Range at Selfridges is pretty small. When I was in Peter Jones in Sloane Square there was a young guy looking for a Filofax. They were all full price and the selection was abysmal. While the assistant went off to find out the names of the different binders for him, I told him that there was a sale at Conduit Street and he mapped it and was on his way there by the time the assistant came back. I really hope he found a nice one!
There is a lovely italian stationery shop at the Picadilly Circus end of Regent Street – I went in but shot out pretty quickly because their leather journals and beautiful pens were making me drool. Also at that end is The Pen Shop.
