SMALL ITEMS

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Buttons

Button Queen

Button Queen sells buttons. More than you could ever eat at a single sitting.

The Button Queen shop closed in early 2018. The business continued to trade online.

Location: 76 Marylebone Lane, W1U 2PR (red, yellow)

Website: www.thebuttonqueen.co.uk

Urban Myths

Men and women button up on different side. It has been claimed that it was to facilitate men drawing their swords, whereas with women it showed that they had a maid to button them up. Buttons were placed on the sleeves of soldiers uniforms. This is supposed to have discouraged their wearers from wiping their noses.

Crafts

The Crafts Council

The Crafts Council is a national body for the crafts. The organisation was set up in 1971. In 1982 it was granted a royal charter.

Location: 44a Pentonville Road, N1 9BY (blue, purple)

Website: www.craftscouncil.org.uk

Cutlery

Fork

The long-distance traveller Thomas Coryate (c.1577-1617) was ribbed mercilessly for proclaiming the merits of the fork that he brought back from Italy.

See Also: EXPLORATION Thomas Coryate

Dinosaur Poo

Guy Shaw (1951-2003) became an internationally renowned carver of netsuke, the toggles that were used to fasten traditional Japanese garments. The materials that he used to make them from included fossilised dinosaur dung, which becomes iridescent when it is polished up.

Enamelled Boxes

The art of enamelling was widespread during the second half of the 18^thC. It had died out by the 1830s.

In 1950 Susan Benjamin (n e Sophia Bendon) (1921-2010) opened Halcyon Days in Avery Row as a business that sold objets d arts. It developed into selling items that she had designed that she thought might appeal to her customers. Nine years later the business relocated to Brook Street. In 1968 she was visiting one of her suppliers when she noticed an enamelled box. She asked who had made it and was put in contact with Copper Enamels (Bilston). The business renamed itself Bilston & Battersea Enamels. For a couple of years there was only a modest interest in them. However, an article in the Financial Times newspaper ignited an interest in them. The royal family soon became customers and at one time the business had four royal warrants concurrently. The bibelots were used as musical boxes, sniff boxes, and bonbonni res (sweetmeat boxes).

The artists who produced work for her included Peter Blake. In 2001 she sold the business but continued to be involved in it as a designer.

Location: 14 Brook Street, W1S 1BE (blue, yellow)

Gloves

Chided For Being Handsome

Ron Arad studied architecture at The Architectural Association. Subsequently, the Israeli joined an architectural practice that was based in London. He became disillusioned with his job. One day, in 1981, he walked into a scrapyard in Chalk Farm. He appreciated the effort that had been spent in creating what he saw before his eyes. He reflected on how the results of all that exertion were going to be scrunched into cubes by the yard's compressors.

Mr Arad decided to make an item of domestic furniture from something that was there. Following careful consideration, he selected a seat that had been created for a Rover car. He bought it and subsequently welded it to a piece of 1930s scaffolding to create an armchair. It set him upon a course of becoming an internationally renowned designer. The seat became an icon of furniture design. He retained the piece.

The Pompidou Centre in Paris mounted an exhibition of Mr Arad's work in 2008. The designer lent the organisers his Rover armchair. He visited the show. When he saw the seat, he appreciated that a slight adjustment to its position would enable it to be displayed more effectively. He moved it by about 20cm.. He was chided by a member of the Centre s staff for having done so. He was told that he should have donned a pair of white handling gloves before touching the item.

Location: Ron Arad Associates, 62 Chalk Farm Road, NW1 8AN (blue, grey)

Website: www.ronarad.co.uk

Handbags

Anya Hindmarch

As a teenager Anya Hindmarch bought a duffel bag in Italy. She persuaded the magazine Harpers & Queen to offer the style of bag as an offer. 500 were sold. Subsequently, she was unable to find other bags that matter her tastes and therefore started designing them.

In 1993 Ms Hindmarch opened her first shop in Walton Street, Chelsea.

Location: 157-158 Sloane Street, SW1X 9AB (red, yellow)

Website: www.anyahindmarch.com

Handkerchiefs

A kingsman was a handkerchief that a costermonger wore around his neck.

Smokers' Requisites

Alfred Dunhill

Over time the Alfred Dunhill business shifted its focus from tobacco goods to menswear and leather goods

Location: 48 Jermyn Street, SW1Y 6LX (blue, purple)

Website: www.dunhill.com

Ties

Annie s Bar is a bar within the Palace of Westminster that is used by M.P.s. It hosts an annual competition for the most revolting tie.

Location: The Palace of Westminster, Parliament Square, SW1A 0AA (purple, blue)

Website: www.parliament.uk

David Backhouse 2024