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LOOKING for that one specific item that will finish off your home? One Saddleworth business may just have it.
And Alison Casson is eager to make sure people know that extra touch could be found on the doorstep, at Studio & Store – a curated design store offering both vintage and new furniture, lighting and objects.
Housed at Gatehead Mill, on Delph New Road in Delph, the business started through a curiosity in breaking away from the norm – and what you may find in any chain furniture store.
British-made is a key component of its range and although the London market is its core, letting people know what is under their noses is just as important.
Alison, whose furniture and lighting range can be both modern and vintage, said: “I’ve always just loved looking for items that other people don’t have and that took me down this road.
“I was looking for some items to buy and sell but the market’s quite saturated with the norm, what I would say, in certain designs.
“Certain brands, a lot of the Scandinavian brands and the market was just absolutely saturated with it.
“So there was no point going down that route, but I love researching and it just took me on this little journey where I started finding, to begin with small British makers, but small British makers that were making really specific items that suited my style. I found there was a bit of a gap in the market for design-led contemporary British-made items.
“At that point, British made was very craft based, very expensive, or it was very, for want of a better word, twee.
“So that kind of set me off on a bit of a journey I started researching both smaller makers and UK manufacturing. There’s much more being made here than you would perhaps think so I started with a few keys pieces as an online website selling British- made items that you might not have seen in other places.”
Studio and Store’s premises could not be better placed for Alison, who lives in Dobcross.
It has been around for 6 years after being founded in 2019, but evolution has seen it change over the years – it can now restore pieces too.
Alison added: “Covid-19 hit just as we were about to launch. We decided to launch, which for us worked well because my makers were still making and posting and were allowed to do that.
“Everyone was at home and looking at things for their homes and the vintage side evolved off the back of that.
“I think it was in the second lockdown I was just looking on Facebook Marketplace and there were a few bits which I was allowed to pick up.
“Then just through Instagram, people started getting in contact with me and being like, ‘Oh, you’re selling that?’ The vintage side just evolved from there.
“Now we do a lot of restoration as well, on items like the well known Carimate chairs which were originally designed for a golf club by Italian designer Vico Magistretti back in the 1960s.
“They were hugely popular then Terence Conran brought them on licence to the UK in the late 1960’s and released them via Habitat – I think of them as our signature pieces as we restore them back to their original state with a brilliant bright red stain.
“There’s quite a few around, but they’re usually in really poor condition as they have rush seats which usually need redoing. At one point I source 28 of them from a chapel on London so they set us up on a journey to look into refurbishing as well – they now reside at an exclusive hotel on the Grand Cayman!
“So we’ve got quite a lot of things going on – vintage, refurbished vintage and new British made items but the key for me is a very careful curation of items that both work and compliment each other but also suit my customer base.
As the name suggests, Studio and Store has two parts – a newly refurbished studio gallery can be used for photoshoots, styling, events and gatherings.
All available props and furniture are available for your use and can be moved around the space to suit customers’ requirements. It can also be available as a vacant space.
And after opening the doors of what is normally accessed by appointment for an open weekend, Alison is determined to spread the name through its community.
“We have an ever-evolving stock range, stocks coming in and out daily, but we’re potentially missing an opportunity by not to opening the doors locally to let people know were here. she told Saddleworth Independent.
“It was also a bit of an experiment to see how it goes, to see what sort of market there is here compared with our existing market in London.
“I am very specific and I think when I often say I sell vintage furniture, people have an idea of what that is in their mind. I’m not that.
“We’ve been in this studio space 3 years. There was always a plan to open it in some way, shape or form. It can be a shop (by appointment), people can rent it as a space, we’ll perhaps do some workshops later in the year and there’s new furniture coming in all the time. I’m always open to ideas and collaborations – its been exciting to allow S&S to evolve from what started as a hobby to the business it is now.
*STUDIO and Store is based at Unit 2, Gatehead Mill, Delph New Road, Delph. Its website is www.studioandstore.com and it can be found on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/studio.and.store/ and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/designstudioandstore.
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