Vanishing appears

There are a few shops around town that cater to pop-cul­ture junkies and seekers of retro mem­or­ab­il­ia, but new­comer Van­ish­ing Point (40 Abel Smith St) adds a  per­son­al twist. As quiffed and string-tied rocka­bil­lies wandered about the tiny shop on open­ing day, the own­ers had to point out that what looked like a café or […]

The Owls Are Not What They Seem

You know that we’re big fans of Madame Fancy Pants. You know what we’re not fans of? Thieves! Dear MFP love­lies, Sorry to say that our big com­pet­i­tion will be can­celed as someone has stolen your prize. 🙁 If you hap­pen to know of someone acquir­ing a Deadly Ponies Mr Night Owl bag.…? If you […]

So long, Marbecks Cuba Mall

It looks like the Marbe­cks on Cuba Mall is clos­ing down, leav­ing the blessed Slow­boat and Real Groovy the only music shops in the area. It does­n’t really come as much of a sur­prise – record shops today seem to exist mainly for music nerds and CD-buy­ing grans. ’90s-style music shops like Marbe­cks are a […]

Win Craft 2.0 craftcash for this Saturday!

The amaz­ing Craft 2.0 is hap­pen­ing again this Sat­urday, and its amaz­ing founder Sue Tyler (full dis­clos­ure: paid-up mem­ber of the Wel­ling­tonista) has decided that you should get a present. Or maybe you. We’ll leave it up to the ran­dom­izer to make the ulti­mate call. On Sat­urday, 18 Decem­ber, Wel­ling­to­ni­ans who want to gift in […]

Win a Most Wanted voucher

Edit: Con­grat­u­la­tions to Com­ment #3 who the ran­dom­izer selec­ted – Laura, I will email you to get your address. In all the con­fu­sion, fun and booze at the TAWAs last week, I com­pletely for­got that we had anoth­er prize giveaway to do, a vouch­er for Most Wanted Vin­tage at 81 Aro Street. Most Wanted Vin­tage […]

JUST GOOD STUFF is back for 2010

Craft mad­ness!  Cre­at­ive cre­ations!  6 days to solve all your Christ­mas shop­ping needs, while sup­port­ing loc­al cre­at­ives – it’s prac­tic­ally guilt-free! Fea­tur­ing JUST GOOD STUFF from: Genevieve Pack­er, Gabby O’Con­nor, Lucy Adams, Phil­lipa Cow­drey, Ala­nah Gib­son, Wendy Neale, Ngaere MacKin­non, Flora Way­cott, Isel Greta Jane, Her­mon & son, Flora Gray, Tess & Gab, Mary Adams, […]

TAWA5 Best Shopping Experience

Stuff, glor­i­ous stuff,  oh how we love to take you home with us.  These are the places we go to win­dow lick, tire kick and buy, buy, buy.  Love your work, people.

Japan City: the fruity fruits of globalisation

The former Hal­len­steins build­ing on Cuba Mall has been under­go­ing a bit of a facelift, get­ting rid of its cute and inter­est­ing 1980s post-mod­­ern facade and repla­cing it with some­thing that looks a lot less inter­est­ing (sob!) But what’s lost in the build­ing has partly been made up for with its cheer­ful new ten­ant, the […]

Spotlight on: Spotlight

Got half an hour or more to spare? Jump in the fab­ric queue at Spot­light at the bot­tom of the Ngaio Gorge, home to pos­sibly the slow­est shop assist­ants in all of New Zea­l­and.

Ser­i­ously, where the hell do they find these people? They’re a really good encour­age­ment to for­sake the easy park­ing and take a bus in to the fab­ric shop on Wil­lis Street instead. But then you’d miss out on all the fab­ulous “oh my god they are so slow!” queue con­ver­sa­tions you get to have with the oth­er irate shop­pers…

(FTW) Wigs for Whigs

me as Madonna, not Marilyn. Honest.Let’s say that you have a dress-up party to go to, maybe with an ‘Amer­ic­an Mis­takes’ theme, and maybe you want a blonde wig to go with your red dress so that you can be Anna Nicole Smith. Where should you get that blonde wig from? Well, if you’re a pub­lic ser­vant at the Moles­worth end of town, you might head down to Cre­at­ive Show Off Cos­tume Hire on Thorndon Quay, and pay $20 for a wig. But if you’re smart, you’ll go to the Cos­tume Cave on Wake­field Street instead, and only pay $10. Cos­tume Cave for the win!