Wolf + Badger: fostering independent designers

Submitted by Kat Hartmann on Tuesday, 16 March 20104 Comments

Con­tem­por­ary retail gal­lery Wolf & Badger has found an innov­at­ive way to foster the careers of young design­ers. The own­ers of the Not­ting Hill space, launched early Feb­ru­ary, are tak­ing the con­fu­sion out of retail and leav­ing design­ers with more time to work on the cre­at­ive side of their business.

WolfBadger2 300x200 Wolf + Badger: fostering independent designers

The Not­ting Hill shop is demys­ti­fy­ing retail for a new gen­er­a­tion of inde­pend­ent design­ers | Image cour­tesy of Wolf & Badger

A group of inde­pend­ent design­ers have been given the oppor­tun­ity to rent out space in a high-profile shop. The hand-selected cre­at­ives are invited to dis­play their wares in a small, box-like sec­tion of the Led­bury Road store, reserved for their sole use and cost­ing as little as £35 a week.

Along with the space on the shop floor, the weekly fee gives design­ers access to guid­ance and ment­or­ing form industry experts,a mar­ket­ing and PR assist­ant and an e-commerce page. The aim is to equip design­ers with know­ledge and industry insight needed to fur­ther their label while also giv­ing them dir­ect access to shop­pers, media and buyers.

WolfBadger 300x200 Wolf + Badger: fostering independent designers

A group of hand-selected design­ers rent out sec­tions of the store for as little as £35 a week | Image cour­tesy of Wolf & Badger

The concept provides the per­fect stepping-stone from mar­ket stall to retail space. Some of the design­ers whose ware cur­rently reside in store are; Royal Col­lege of Art gradu­ate Gisele Ganne and the designer pre­vi­ously of Burn­ing Rocks col­lec­tion for De Beers fame, Tomasz Donocik.

The store is cur­rently at capa­city but own­ers still encour­age inde­pend­ent design­ers to apply for fur­ther inform­a­tion and join the W&B mail­ing list. Who knows when the next oppor­tun­ity will present itself…

Do you know of any innov­at­ive pro­jects to help emer­ging cre­at­ives in your city? Share your dis­cov­er­ies below!

4 Comments »

  • Keishka said:

    It’s lovely to see how this gal­lery cre­ates a com­munity that sup­port and edu­cate the design­ers in cre­at­ive indus­tries. They aren’t only taught to cre­ate a design but moreover, they’re lec­tured on how to run the busi­ness. There’s a sim­ilar place in China called china vil­lage art. In my coun­try, Indone­sia, the gov­ern­ment is also holds some work­shops for the crafts­men reg­u­larly. I hope there will be mooore local com­munity to estab­lish for every­one, espe­cially the youth, to start their own cre­at­ive indus­tries entrepreneurship! : )

    20 March 2010 at 16:40
  • Amber P said:

    Mel­bourne (again!) has a sim­ilar awe­some space: designaspace.com.au. They’ve got around 70 design­ers put­ting their wares into the pot and I have never vis­ited without pur­chas­ing some­thing. It’s awesome.

    Loc­ally, Auck­land wise, I think we rock at cre­at­ing online spaces and tem­por­ary events to cater for emer­ging cre­at­ives. First Thursdays, Crafter­noon Tea and Craft­werk are all access­ible mar­kets for makers & artists. Also, my friend Har­riet is part of the citydesignersmarket.co.nz — a group of fash­ion design­ers who set up 2 days a week on the high street. Con­sumers get: local, tal­en­ted, qual­ity fashion.The design­ers get an: afford­able chan­nel, pro­mo­tion, flex­ib­il­ity. Win-win, yay!

    30 March 2010 at 00:51

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