Mix your shop up

 I have always been a fan of mixed up retail. You know the type we Irish used to do so well like a Pub- Grocer- Funeral Director business where you could have a few pints then buy a half pound of tea and some rashers for when you got home and all this from the same pub.

I've been to a few strange mixed shops but one that stands out was a hairdresser - denim shop - vintage vinyl record shop in Spitalfields London. In the coiffure section you sat at vintage dressing tables to have your "do" done. The "dos" were all post Hoxton Fin and asymmetric fringes.  The dressing tables were from different decades 20's 40's and 50's, very cool. The basement was home to the denim and vinyl records with ABBA playing on a little Dancetron set on the floor.

The LeCool group have catalogued these mad little shops in London and other cities

Mat Osmon of LeCool describes the London book thus

"It's for people who love the city, People who love scooter shops that turn into coffee shops, and flats with aeroplane wings through them, and manga libraries, and doll's house furniture shops, and bubble-and-squeak stalls, and hairdressers-cum-art galleries-cum-nightclubs, and rollergirls, and so on and so on .

So if its for people who love the city, any city then it's for me.

There is a LeCool Dublin Website but this lists events rather than places. Maybe its time to catalogue Dublin's more eccentric shops.

Which one would you put at the top of your list? I know a lot of my readers are not from Dublin. Let me know of the quirky places where you live?

With corporate multinational similar streets you just don't get a mix up, a shop where you could  buy some boots and buy a painting. Let me know if your thinking of getting one off the ground.