Independent Thinking - Exploring a new era for retail and the high street

This week, just in time for those Back to School and fresh pencil case vibes, I’m delighted to be in conversation with Sidonie from Papersmiths, a ‘stationery shop of your dreams’ with branches in London and Brighton. 

Sidonie shares her story about the brand’s humble beginnings, through the growth of the business, moving cities, scaling up, and getting through those tumultuous lockdowns. 

Sidonie’s story is one of seeing the value in every step of your journey, and making it the business owner you are today. Whether you’re looking to start a business or are even thinking about whether to make the leap in another aspect of your life, I think you’ll find our chat really inspiring - we talk about creative and innovative approaches to problem solving, why even the smallest items in our lives deserve to be beautiful and bring us joy, and why there's a time and a place to take risks...

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After a slightly longer break than planned - we are BACK! And what a series opener we have for you...

If you've ever reminisced about teenage days spent lolling around your town centre and the role your high street played in growing up, or spotted a ghost sign on the side of a building and pondered "what's that?" - then you're going to love this episode. But that's not to say this episode is all about looking back, as our chat with Ellen, Head of Creative Programmes and Campaigns for Historic England, proves. 

Far from it. 

Because whilst it's important to preserve and honour the past, we also need to consider how we learn from it, and how it can inform our future. Historic England are doing just that as part of their High Street Cultural Programme - which celebrates the wealth of stories and tales that our are embedded in our high streets. Ellen talks about how they’re working closely with communities, artists, photographers, poets, musicians, writers and others to take a snapshot of high streets now, celebrate and uncover stories of the past, and help us reimagine where we could be going next. 

Find out more about the programme here:  https://historicengland.org.uk/get-involved/high-street-culture/

And check out some incredible photographs from '100 years of high street shopping' here: https://historicengland.org.uk/#gallery-0-2

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In the last episode of this series, this week we’re speaking to Food by Nourish, a gourmet grocer and deli, based in South Lanarkshire. Created by friends Greg and Richard, the business started life in a humble van (the Tattie Wagon)  delivering veg throughout lockdown, but my, have they come a long way since then. 

We talk about food as a force for good, running with an idea, an unfortunate lack of Piccalilli lovers locally and why, if an idea's no good, well "it goes in the soup"...

We recorded this one a while back, but it’s only now mainly for technical reasons that it’s been able to go out - listening to it back I remembered how fun this one was to record, how funny they were,  and how invested they both are in making sure their produce is as high quality as it can be - so reckon you’ll enjoy this one!   

Check them out here: https://foodbynourish.co.uk/

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This week, we are joined by Taisir Gibreel, Head of Retail at Restoration Yard, the winner of  Best Store Design award at Draper's Independent's Awards 2021. Taisir speaks about how she's brought her years of experience as a designer to store merchandising, the thrill of buying and connecting with producers and why she just loves the magic and theatre of retail.
You are going to get so excited for Christmas after hearing this - enjoy!

https://www.restorationyard.com/

https://www.taisirgibreel.co.uk/

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Now, it’s fair to say this year has thrown its fair amount of challenges at retailers. Covid restrictions, Brexit.. just to name two hugely important factors this year of course. But to this we can add; wider global economic uncertainty, global heating and climate change becoming more acute... all making us consider our decisions as consumers and in fact what it means to ‘consume’.            

We are of course in the midst of a huge amount of change. 

So at this point in the year, I wanted to check in again with Dr Sarah Montano of University of Birmingham to help us unpack the complexities and help us understand how the past year has impacted our habits and what the future could look like as we continue to adapt to living through a pandemic. Sarah brings some much needed groundedness to these discussions, talks about small changes we can all make, what innovation we can look forward to in the future and why we have much to be hopeful about. 

It’s always a pleasure to speak to Sarah, we could have chatted all morning when we recorded this! Hope you enjoy!

The 'What is the Metaverse?' article we mention:  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/10/style/metaverse-virtual-worlds.html

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This episode was brought to you by Rebecca, Elaine and Natalie who have kindly pledged their support for the show through Patreon! Hello to you all - you have my eternal gratitude and are helping keep this show on the road!

This week we have the first of our Revisited episodes, where a guest from a previous series joins us once again to update us on their business journey. This week we're joined by Edinburgh-based childrenswear brand Bon Tot - who has seen an enormous amount of change in the past year - a shop move, a new brand and the establishment of a new business partnership between Kris, who started the company and Cara, her new business partner. 

We talk about evolving a brand, being tenacious, working through insecurities, reminding yourself of Beyonce, the joy of finding someone in business who just completely understands you and so. Much. More. Enjoy!

https://www.bon-tot.com/

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This week, we are speaking to Rare Birds Books founder, Rachel. Rare Birds Book Club started life as a subscription service, created by Rachel to fill a gap in the market - offering a hand-picked selection of women’s literature to shake up your regular reading habits and broaden your horizons. In the past 4 years the business has gone from strength to strength - and this year has fulfilled Rachel’s dream of opening an HQ, by making a move to the local high street and into bricks and mortar retail, setting up shop in August this year, in Edinburgh’s Stockbridge.

We talk to Rachel about growing a business and community from the ground up whilst working full time, being receptive to opportunity and making the move into retail.

If you’ve ever wondered about starting a business, to follow your passion or turn an interest into an income perhaps  - you’re going to find the next 50 mins very inspiring...

https://rarebirdsbookclub.com/

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Our first guest of the series is a special to coincide with COP 26, the UN Climate Change Conference which, if you’re listening to this on the day of release, started yesterday in Glasgow. So, who better to talk to than a business based in the city, which has sustainability at its heart. Today we’re speaking to Bevan from Bawn - an ethical textile atelier in Glasgow’s Southside, a place where you can find sustainably made, ethically sourced fabrics and textiles. 

Bevan is a huge believer in the local high street, and that some things are made to experience in person - particularly when it comes to something as tactile as textiles - a belief that  began in her earlier days working in a haberdashery in her home city of Dublin. 

We talk to founder Bevan about how she brought her training from the world of museums into the world of retail, how she supports customers to navigate the ever more complicated world of ‘shopping ethically’ and how she has led a group of like-minded individuals to create her own, unique response to COP 26 - creating something which shows how much more can be achieved when we pull together, as she tells us about the project, Cop Twenty Stitch. Enjoy! 

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Just like that, we're at the end of series 3! We'll off on our summer break, but worry not - we'll be back before you know it with more stories from independents across Scotland in the Autumn! 

Before we go though, we are delighted to bring you our chat with East Coast Cured - as we speak to founders Susie and Steven. 

Founded in an attic in 2017, East Coast Cured was borne out of a shared love of food, a passion for local produce and a longing to be able to access the kind of charcuterie in Scotland that they had previously only been able to get hold of when holidaying overseas. 

Spring forward 4 years later, we catch up with Susie and Steven to chat resilience in business, why local produce matters, the power of community and why the past 18 months has given them a renewed sense of optimism about our shared future. Enjoy! 

https://www.eastcoastcured.com/

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There has been much talk about the new St James Quarter that opened in Edinburgh last month, and a huge amount of discussion and excitement about their food market - Bonnie & Wild. We’ll be discussing the wider development in more depth next series, but we wanted to first catch up with one of the traders in the new market, gelato makers Joelato - because what better way to celebrate summer on the show?!

Founded in Perthshire by Joe Sykes with his partner Lucy, this will be Joelato’s first foray into retail. They had dreams of starting their own food business, and through lockdown turned that vision into a reality, creating a product which people couldn’t help but shout about - including former guest on the show, Flora Shedden. 

We talk about his passion for Scotland’s bountiful produce, why he finds Italy so inspiring, coping when things go wrong and preparing for such an anticipated opening.  Enjoy! 

https://www.joelato.co.uk/

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