Documenting the Disappearance of Small English Shops

It’s no secret that long before Covid made its way to the English isles, the British high street was withering. Big names and local names alike have been noticeably vanishing from communities ever since the internet got its wings. But of course, it’s always the erosion of a once proud little family business that hurts…

Internet killed the Video Store: An Abandoned Industry

Blockbuster in New Orleans, Louisiana (Image via Alex Gaidouk) I remember my trips to the local Blockbuster store on Saturday nights as a kid, trying to convince my babysitter that Mum had given me her express permission to see films PG-13 like The Bodyguard and Pretty Woman. It’s been hard not to notice the disappearance…

The Little Shop that Cared & other Tales

– When I was a little girl, I used to play ‘shop’. I set up my own make-shift retail space, carefully displaying my own clothes and toys around my bedroom and for hours on end I happily traded with imaginary customers. I borrowed the colored bills from our Monopoly game and used a real receipt-printing…

Banner Ladies: The Human Billboards of Yesteryear

Whether you’ve traded your old sofa on Craigslist or advertised your business and its products to the world, we’ve all had to dabble in the art of promotion at one point or another. In my experience, creativity is key, and it doesn’t get much more creative than the advertising style of 19th century banner ladies,…

Shopping for Music in the ’60s Was Awesome. Today, Not So Much.

Welcome to the HMV store in mid 20th century London! Why not take a turn in one of the space age listening booths… Or hang out at the Cosmopolitan Corner and be all… cosmopolitan. Meet some other cool cats in this music library / lounge … Toot toot! Beep beep! And you might as well…

I Live in a Ghost Town

“I was tired of the capital. Too much noise, too many people. And I couldn’t stand my neighbours. I wanted a change of scenery, and especially of life.” If only I could construct my own little French ghost town to escape to. Thibaut Derien created one through his photography project “I Live in a Ghost Town”. From…

Paris of Yesteryear even makes Running Errands look Charming

I found a really neat Facebook page today packed with old Paris photographs I’d never seen before. From an album dedicated entirely to Parisians buying baguettes to photographs of vintage advertising around the city, it’s a bit of a Parisphile treasure trove. I was drawn to a collection documenting everyday life in Paris and the simple charm of running errands…

20 of the Most Charming Little Shopfronts

So many shops seem to look the same these days, but there are those special few that stand out, with shop fronts even more charming than the objects behind them. Here’s one for the window-shoppers… 1. The Key Lime Pie Factory in Key West, Florida Photograph via here / shop website here 2. Hérodote Bookstore in Lyon,…

Three Cities, Three Nocturnal Cultures

Europe is hardly a nocturnal place. Most cities seem to close up shop and tuck into bed by 10pm, unlike New York, where you can buy anything at any hour. But three different photographers, in three different European cities took to the streets to document the stand alone trades that operate after dark. These are…

The Last Bookshop

This short film imagines life in the future without independent shops and tells the story of a young schoolboy who stumbles upon the last remaining bookshop. Directors Richard Dadd and Dan Fryer are the duo behind the creative studio, The Bakery: We love bookshops. But we saw that many are going through tough times. We wanted to…