PACKAGING MATERIALS – Parcel-tape, string, rubber bands, tissue paper, cardboard, all resolutely brown. At LABOUR AND WAIT we spend our days surrounded by these honest-to-goodness materials. ‘Brown paper packages tied up with string’, these are definitely some of ‘our favourite things’!
This year’s calendar pays homage to our favourite colour; brown. We always find ourselves drawn to this colour. Its darker shades have a graphic quality like black, whilst the lighter tones have a warm and natural feel. When we began selecting products for LABOUR AND WAIT over twenty years ago, we soon realised that our proclivity for brown tones could get the better of us and the result would be a completely brown shop. We regularly have to keep ourselves in check to ensure a variety of hues and colours find their way to the shop floor.
JUDGE WARE – Brown enamel beguiles, and these vintage Judge Ware saucepans have stood the test of time. When in situ, these pans look to have come straight out of a William Scott painting. In the past, many manufacturers of enamel chose brown as their signature colour but our favourite has always been this British staple.
This year’s calendar pays homage to our favourite colour; brown. We always find ourselves drawn to this colour. Its darker shades have a graphic quality like black, whilst the lighter tones have a warm and natural feel. When we began selecting products for LABOUR AND WAIT over twenty years ago, we soon realised that our proclivity for brown tones could get the better of us and the result would be a completely brown shop. We regularly have to keep ourselves in check to ensure a variety of hues and colours find their way to the shop floor.
APOTHECARY JARS – There is something enticing and yet curiously circumspect about the amber glass of an old apothecary jar. Maybe it is the mysterious contents it once concealed, or a childhood memory of some foul-tasting remedy administered from a brown glass bottle. Either way, these evocative vessels always capture our imagination.
This year’s calendar pays homage to our favourite colour; brown. We always find ourselves drawn to this colour. Its darker shades have a graphic quality like black, whilst the lighter tones have a warm and natural feel. When we began selecting products for LABOUR AND WAIT over twenty years ago, we soon realised that our proclivity for brown tones could get the better of us and the result would be a completely brown shop. We regularly have to keep ourselves in check to ensure a variety of hues and colours find their way to the shop floor.
Our man Ben meets Corinne Mynatt, author of 'Tools for Food' and the owner of all the incredible tools for food featured in our concurrent exhibitions in Shoreditch and Marylebone. Ben and Corinne talk French items in this episode.
For this year's London Design Festival we have collaborated with author Corinne Mynatt on a launch and related exhibition to mark the publication of her new book Tools for Food: The stories behind objects that influence how and what we eat.
Running from 18 – 26 September 2021, the launch will be accompanied by a display in both our Shoreditch and Marylebone shops, incorporating objects featured in the book and exhibited alongside our own kitchen tool icons. The display will be a nod to Julia Child’s kitchen, utilising the pegboard system to hang kitchen objects and tools. The book is the début publication for the Nashville-born, East London based writer, curator and creative producer.
The book’s content ranges from a 4th century Korean fermenting crock to a hyper-stylised, 21st century Italian lemon juicer, showing how each and every tool for food that has been made in part contributes to the way we eat, cook and live today. Organised by function – such as Prep & Wash, Weigh & Measure, Cut & Chop – the book features 250 of the best loved, most intriguing and indisputably iconic kitchen utensils, exploring everything from their historical relevance as a design object to their place in our homes today. Filled with little-known facts and fascinating photographs and illustrations of objects throughout, Tools for Food examines the relationship between cooking and culture in the most expansive of ways.
Tools for Food will be exclusively available during London Design Festival before it publishes on 23rd September in the UK, USA and Australia. Corinne will be present for book signing at our Shoreditch shop during the Shoreditch Design Triangle’s late night event on Tuesday 21st September. Drinks will be provided by the East London Liquor Company.
SLIPWARE – There is a certain earthiness and naivety about slipware which we are attracted to. The very technique requires an immediacy, which results in an unselfconscious decorative approach. These simple rustic pieces have a timeless quality which we greatly admire. The natural colours of the clay and slip display a range of earthy hues.
This year’s calendar pays homage to our favourite colour; brown. We always find ourselves drawn to this colour. Its darker shades have a graphic quality like black, whilst the lighter tones have a warm and natural feel. When we began selecting products for LABOUR AND WAIT over twenty years ago, we soon realised that our proclivity for brown tones could get the better of us and the result would be a completely brown shop. We regularly have to keep ourselves in check to ensure a variety of hues and colours find their way to the shop floor.
BASKETRY – The traditional craft of the basket-maker never fails to impress. Wickerwork is an ancient technique which has evolved over millennia and is used throughout the world. Originally conceived out of a necessity to contain items, the functional aspect of basketry and the intricacy of the weave are equally appealing.
This year’s calendar pays homage to our favourite colour; brown. We always find ourselves drawn to this colour. Its darker shades have a graphic quality like black, whilst the lighter tones have a warm and natural feel. When we began selecting products for LABOUR AND WAIT over twenty years ago, we soon realised that our proclivity for brown tones could get the better of us and the result would be a completely brown shop. We regularly have to keep ourselves in check to ensure a variety of hues and colours find their way to the shop floor.
Our man Ben, assistant manager of our shops at Labour and Wait, has a keen eye and a full brain when it comes to discerning good, timeless products. Listening to him extoll the virtues of a Guernsey sweater or a Riess enamel milk pot have become part of the fabric of walking into our shops. But with many not able to make it to Shoreditch or Marylebone either due to the pandemic or simply just living in London, we have put together some short videos on our Instagram page of Ben talking thoroughly about a product or topic, sure to beguile you!
BISCUITS – What is a cuppa without a biccie? Being unrelenting tea drinkers, we can’t imagine such a thing! From the plainest Rich Tea or the humble Digestive, to the fancier Bourbon and the even tastier chocolate Hobnob – we’ll dunk them all given half the chance. The rate of biscuit consumption at LABOUR AND WAIT risks us becoming the barrel!
This year’s calendar pays homage to our favourite colour; brown. We always find ourselves drawn to this colour. Its darker shades have a graphic quality like black, whilst the lighter tones have a warm and natural feel. When we began selecting products for LABOUR AND WAIT over twenty years ago, we soon realised that our proclivity for brown tones could get the better of us and the result would be a completely brown shop. We regularly have to keep ourselves in check to ensure a variety of hues and colours find their way to the shop floor.
We are excited to announce the opening of a second London shop at 48 Dorset Street in Marylebone. The new space will feature the full product roster and the same friendly faces of the team from our Redchurch Street shop.
Opening on Thursday 3rd June 2021, it also marks the 21st anniversary of our first shop in East London. Founders Simon and Rachel are very familiar with Dorset Street, having first met only a stones throw away in the late 1990s. They both admire Marylebone's distinct character and that traditional businesses like real pubs, dry cleaners and shoe repairers rub shoulders with notable restaurants and boutique hotels; not that dissimilar to how Shoreditch has developed.
The new shop is the last building in a grand red brick terrace, built around 1900, retaining the original parquet flooring and some internal tiling from a former occupant. We want the shop to feel as though it has always been there, so we have incorporated elements of the building's past into our new space.
With shops being closed for such a large part of 2020 and us all being forced to buy online, we still believe that physical shops are integral to the community: LABOUR AND WAIT was founded when the nature of retail was growing ever more impersonal and homogenous, so we aimed to offer a friendly environment that was relevant to the neighbourhood. This has remained a core principal, and we looking forward to bringing our functional, timeless products to Marylebone.
LABOUR AND WAIT
48 Dorset Street,
Marylebone, London,
W1U 7NE
Monday to Saturday – 11.00am to 6.00pm
Sunday – Closed
020 7729 6253
dorset@labourandwait.co.uk
G.P.O. JUGS – These handsome two-tone stoneware jugs have always intrigued us. For us it is a perpetual hunt for these bulbous beauties. Clearly stamped or printed with ‘G.P.O.’ on the base, they must have originally been produced for this organisation – but why, and what was their purpose? Answers on a postcard please!
This year’s calendar pays homage to our favourite colour; brown. We always find ourselves drawn to this colour. Its darker shades have a graphic quality like black, whilst the lighter tones have a warm and natural feel. When we began selecting products for LABOUR AND WAIT over twenty years ago, we soon realised that our proclivity for brown tones could get the better of us and the result would be a completely brown shop. We regularly have to keep ourselves in check to ensure a variety of hues and colours find their way to the shop floor.
Charlie Porter, writer and friend of Labour and Wait, is poised to release his new book, 'What Artists Wear'– a fascinating survey of modern and contemporary artists' choices of attire in the studio, in performance, at work and at play.
CERAMIC BOTTLES – Stoneware bottles were an everyday commodity in Victorian-times. These ink pots and bottles, which have been dug out of the ground from old dumps, or ‘middens’, hold our fascination. Those from the Midlands are often stamped ‘Bourne Denby’ or ‘Lovatts’; those from the South of England with ‘Doulton’. Today we tend to assume that bottles are made from glass, so these ceramic versions are a curiosity.
This year’s calendar pays homage to our favourite colour; brown. We always find ourselves drawn to this colour. Its darker shades have a graphic quality like black, whilst the lighter tones have a warm and natural feel. When we began selecting products for LABOUR AND WAIT over twenty years ago, we soon realised that our proclivity for brown tones could get the better of us and the result would be a completely brown shop. We regularly have to keep ourselves in check to ensure a variety of hues and colours find their way to the shop floor.
It feels like an eon since shops were open before Christmas, so we are awfully pleased to see our friends Dover Street Market reopening today.
To coincide with their reopening we have revamped our space on the third floor. You'll find many of our usual suspects with a few exclusive products only found at Dover Street Market.
Opening Hours:
Monday to Saturday – 11:00am to 7:00pm
Sunday – 12:00pm to 6:00pm
Address:
18-22 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4DG
Tel:
020 7518 0680
Our Redchurch Street shop in Shoreditch reopens on Wednesday 14th April.
We will be open five days a week Wednesday to Sunday from 11.00am until 6.00pm, closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Customers will be limited to six at one time with masks a necessity by law as we have all become accustomed to. Hand sanitiser provided at the door.
We can’t wait to have you back in the shop!
BRUSHES – A hallmark of LABOUR AND WAIT. There seems to have been a brush designed for every task fathomable. Sadly the craft of the brush maker seems to be a dying art. Meanwhile, popularity of the humble brush appears to be on the increase; we would like to think our obsession has played a small part in this.
This year’s calendar pays homage to our favourite colour; brown. We always find ourselves drawn to this colour. Its darker shades have a graphic quality like black, whilst the lighter tones have a warm and natural feel. When we began selecting products for LABOUR AND WAIT over twenty years ago, we soon realised that our proclivity for brown tones could get the better of us and the result would be a completely brown shop. We regularly have to keep ourselves in check to ensure a variety of hues and colours find their way to the shop floor.
BOXES – We have a strange attraction to items in boxes. Everything contained and in its place. In our eyes there is nothing more satisfying than a well-made box.We are particularly partial to the good old brown card variety. We’ve certainly packed and unpacked a fair few of these in the past 21 years!
This year’s calendar pays homage to our favourite colour; brown. We always find ourselves drawn to this colour. Its darker shades have a graphic quality like black, whilst the lighter tones have a warm and natural feel. When we began selecting products for LABOUR AND WAIT over twenty years ago, we soon realised that our proclivity for brown tones could get the better of us and the result would be a completely brown shop. We regularly have to keep ourselves in check to ensure a variety of hues and colours find their way to the shop floor.
LEATHERWORK – Nothing compares to the look, feel and smell of leather. We favour brown leather in all its tones, as it wears and patinates so gracefully. Items made by a skilled leatherworker are beautiful to look at and a joy to use. Each piece becomes unique to its owner, bearing the marks of wear and use, and can gently mark the passage of time.
This year’s calendar pays homage to our favourite colour; brown. We always find ourselves drawn to this colour. Its darker shades have a graphic quality like black, whilst the lighter tones have a warm and natural feel. When we began selecting products for LABOUR AND WAIT over twenty years ago, we soon realised that our proclivity for brown tones could get the better of us and the result would be a completely brown shop.We regularly have to keep ourselves in check to ensure a variety of hues and colours find their way to the shop floor.
TREEN – Whether useful or purely aesthetic, small wooden objects are difficult to put down. There is something almost magical about a lovingly honed piece of wood. The way in which this natural material can be turned, carved, smoothed and polished into a tactile shape never ceases to amaze. The tones, colours and grain make every piece unique.