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.