Here are the nom­i­nees for the Best Shop cat­e­go­ry for the 2nd Annu­al Welling­ton­ista Awards (2AWA).

Good­bye pay-pack­et, hel­lo mer­chan­dise:

Some­times we like to pre­tend to be filthy hip­pies, and care about things like glob­al­i­sa­tion, and con­sumerism, debt and exces­sive con­sump­tion. But then we see all the shiny things for sale in these shops, and all those thoughts go right out the win­dow as we rush towards the pret­ties with our arms wide open.

(nom­i­nees after the jump)

A. Wanda Harland

Yes, the own­er of this store, Martha, does write for the Welling­ton­ista, but we are not hold­ing that against her, because Wan­da Har­land is such a love­ly shiny new shop deep in the heart of Petone. We like that the empha­sis in the shop is on qual­i­ty Kiwi cre­ations (includ­ing the work of the won­der­ful Sam Broad), and only stocks import­ed stuff when you can’t get any­thing like it in NZ. Colour­ful prod­ucts stacked high on white shelv­ing makes the place love­ly to linger in, and sit­ting on a fat boy drink­ing a Fox­ton Fizz after some pow­er shop­ping is our idea of love­ly.

B. Eyeball Kicks

Remem­ber that hotrod you always want­ed? You know the one with the cus­tom chrome and hand-paint­ed pin­strip­ing. You were gonna cruise around all day with your skull-tat­tooed arm out the win­dow, your hotrod pin-up mama/daddy beside you, on your way to the tiki bar for a zom­bie, with The Cramps blast­ing out the stereo. Yeah.

Well Eye­ball Kicks is the phys­i­cal embod­i­ment of that dream of yours. They stock all the Poster Pop artists, local pop art and the best tiki mugs in the world. And yes, Mitch O’Con­nell did do their logo.

C. Wineseeker

wine makethIf you’re around the Cuba/Willis quar­ter, it’s a relief to know that when it’s time for a BYO din­ner you’re not held at the mer­cy of Star­mart (who might not even be able to sell you wine if there’s noone over the age of 18 work­ing), tiny dairies or the big queues at New World. Of course, say­ing “it’s a relief” is a ter­ri­ble way of express­ing the love­ly per­son­alised ser­vice avail­able at Wine­seek­er. Their shelves are over­flow­ing with all kinds of deli­cious­ly drink­able treats, help­ful­ly labelled by taste and not vari­ety, with clear­ly marked areas for “Under $20” so you don’t have to embar­rass your­self by ask­ing where the cheap stuff’s at. Instead, you can try to stump the very knowl­edge­able staff by ask­ing for odd rec­om­men­da­tions, or you can try what­ev­er they have avail­able for tast­ing that day. Not only that, but they also run reg­u­lar events, run­ning the gamut from meet­ing eccen­tric Euro­pean Counts who make cham­pagne, to Sin­gles’ Night Wine-Tast­ings. Cheers Wine­seek­er!

D. PopUp

From $1,000+ giclée prints by Kozik et al to small card­board box­es with anthro­po­mor­phic spray cans in them, Pop­Up has it all. After a slow start this lit­tle store for pop art has tak­en off. It now stocks local artists, many of whom have dec­o­rat­ed the near­by “graf­fi­ti alley”.

It’s now a can­dy store for pop art-lov­ing adults and kids who like the “weird-look­ing” toys. Also remem­ber to take a peek inside the plan chest by the door for even more prints, orig­i­nal ani­ma­tion cells and paint­ings.

WINNER!!!
E. Unity Books

Once you get past the big chain book­stores of vary­ing qual­i­ty there are many proud inde­pen­dent book­sellers scat­tered about Welling­ton. And the fore­most of these is Uni­ty Books. We ask the ques­tion seri­ous­ly: if you can’t get it at Uni­ty, is it real­ly worth read­ing?

For a handy map of where to vis­it all these shops, use the “best­shop” tag on Zoomin. Spend up large before vot­ing opens on Novem­ber 19.