Four Decades of Design and Retail

Forty years ago we showcased a small selection of our designs in the Institute of Contemporary arts in the Mall in London. It was the start of a career in retailing.

We opened our first retail shop in Clarendon cross in West London in 1990. Known locally as ‘the Cross’ it was close to Holland Park in the midst of a wealthy residential part of London. It was a good location which remains the key to the success of a retail enterprise. Our shop was opposite Cath Kidston who was already established selling vintage blankets. We shared customers with similar interests.

Ten years later we opened in the Royal Mile in Edinburgh in a shop that had been occupied by Bernat Klein, the well known Scottish textile designer. In 2004 we bought Crocket’s Land an early eighteenth century house in the West Bow off the Grassmarket. We swapped our shop in the Royal Mile with the tenant in the shop below the house.

Back in London we were persuaded to move to Chelsea by Annabel Lewis of VV Rouleaux as the shop next door to her famous ribbon shop off Sloane square became available. We were opposite Peter Jones, one of London’s earliest John Lewis stores at the top of the fashionable King’s road. Popular with both locals and tourists it was a busy area and proved to be another good place to shop. Once our shops were included in the area subject to congestion charge it became more difficult for our local customers to park their cars while shopping. Purchases of heavy stoneware and bulky soft furnishings are not so easy to manage on the bus! Annabel had opened a second shop in Marylebone which proved a more popular destination than Chelsea and so we followed her there to a small shop on the corner of Thayer Street at the bottom of the high street.

Being a quintessential Scottish brand, the ANTA classic home furnishings and stoneware collections have always appealed to both local people and visitors, finding the right location easily accessible for both remains a challenge. The Royal Mile and the Grassmarket being mainly busy, and popular tourists destinations meant we needed a shop in a more residential area so we opened a small shop in Stockbridge. We soon realised we needed more space to showcase our larger pieces of furniture and carpet rugs so we consolidated, closed both smaller shops and opened a large flagship store in George Street at the same time as opening in West George street in Glasgow.

Online shopping was becoming more popular and for a small company e-commerce was an attractive option as opposed to traditional bricks and mortar shops in central city locations. It was less expensive, easier to manage our stock and we were able to reach a local and global audience. Prior to the Covid pandemic we decided to close the Glasgow and London shops, develop our online shop keeping only one flagship store in Edinburgh. Five years ago we lost that shop too. Fortunately we were able to service our customers via our e-commerce site and continue trading.

Retailing is changing again. Sending goods abroad is now much more expensive and time consuming. We see far more visitors to our capital city and we have decided to open again in Edinburgh to service our local customers and overseas visitors together with our newly updated e-commerce site.

Our factory shop in the Highlands in Fearn has always been here, and is good for a bargain. There’s plenty of choice from end of line textiles to ‘almost perfect’ stoneware.

The road to the north is one of the most beautiful and if you have time it is worth the trip at at any time of the year.