All I want for Christmas is…
Not Mariah Carey. Sorry Mariah.
Following on from last post, my holiday gift guide, which was all items I own… now it’s time to share what I personally am wishing for this year.
Confession: of course, I haven’t tried these products. There is zero chance of my IRL family and friends buying them for me. I may end up buying some of them myself. 😄
But what they have in common is a design-first approach, a sense of purpose, and elevated materials. They may also be a little off the beaten path.
Bastille bicycle
I am a proud owner of a Brompton, sprinkled with titanium and carbon. It is a marvel of engineering, compact, refined, and a British design classic. In fact, one of these days I will write a proper post on it as one of the most successful Deliberate Objects. But boy does it suck on a gravel path, or potholes, let alone up and down kerbs.
Unlike most Brompton buyers, my initial motivation for getting a folding bike was not primarily for a multi-modal commute on public transport, or lugging it to my desk in an office building. Instead, I thought it would help make it easy to get a bike in the boot of my car, so I could take my kids cycling. I also looked forward to being able to store my bike much more easily, either in the house or garage.
Enter the Bastille, a new(ish) folding bike from France. Yes, it’s £2,500, yes it’s 15kg (twice the weight of my Brompton), yes it’s not going to win any beauty awards… but it is a full size casual street bike with the most ingenious (patented) folding mechanism, and lots of quality of life features like a belt drive and hydraulic brakes.
Unlike the Brompton, it looks like there are basically no compromises in the ‘performs as a bike’ side, and it’s still easy enough to stick in your hallway or load into your car.
Hardgraft One Pack
Sometimes products are so captivating in their materials and design that you find your brain working overtime to justify the practicality. This is one of those products.
Even in the crowded category of crossbody slings and sacoches, the Hardgraft stands out for its absolutely gorgeous materials: beautiful leather, Cobra buckle, grey wool, herringbone strap. At £300, you would hope it to be luscious, and it is.
Inside… well, it’s small. One pouch the size of a pencil case. Phone, wallet, keys, airpods, maybe a notebook or battery pack, gum or mints… and I think that’ll be your lot. No organisation, either. Basically, whatever you would fit into your pockets can go in here.
Is that worth carrying? In winter, when pockets are aplenty, perhaps not; in summer when you’re in shorts and tee, perhaps it makes sense (just don’t get suncream on that leather).
But I want it I want it I want it.
Snowpeak Titanium sake bottle
As I previously posted, I love Snowpeak stuff. But no matter how many times I hit the website, this is one piece I just can’t justify moving from the wishlist to the shopping cart.
£200 for a classically shaped, narrow-necked sake bottle, but made out of single-walled Titanium. It’s gorgeous. No doubt it was hard to make. I really really want it.
But practically speaking… sake comes in a bottle. Every time. Am I supposed to decant it from a sealed, practical glass bottle into this one? And then from this bottle into the usual sake flask, then into my cup? That feels like a lot of steps.
The neck is super narrow… that makes cleaning difficult, too.
All these tradeoffs, and yet I still really want it!
Sailor inks in vase bottles
For me the frustration of FOMO is a catalyst for addiction. In the world of ink, there are a million choices: thousands of store exclusives from all across the globe, many made right here in the UK and readily available for barely a tenner.
And yet. I love Sailor’s old vase bottles. I love them even more now that they’re basically unobtainium. More and more of the old store exclusive inks from Japanese retailers are swapping over to Sailor’s new square bottles, and those that remain don’t ship to the UK — even via the international shopping services. It’s got to the point that I don’t even really care what colour ink is inside, I will buy these bottles on sight, simply for the thrill of the chase.
As a piece of design, these bottles are dear to my heart. The tall shape is not only pretty and elegant, it makes filling longer nibs easier. The caps seal well and come off easily (Wearingeul caps give me blisters). The tapered shape, I imagine, helps keep the bottle usable as the level drops.
I have quite a few of these bottles, and I regret all the ones I sold off early in my journey. I will happily take any donations!
Ink mascara
I don’t do as much swatching as I used to. When I do, I go through buckets of cotton swabs, or dip the back end of a glass pen. It all feels vaguely unsatisfactory.
Then someone in Japan (of course) solves the problem. This is the ink mascara, and it takes advantage of the surface tension of ink to grab a bucketload for you to lay down on the page, like a crazy wire mascara brush.
Easy to clean, repeatable, comfortable, and above all ingenious in a ‘why didn’t I think of that’ way.
Unfortunately this most niche of products is only available from Japanese pen shows, so I will have to admire it from afar.
Here’s the Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/mart.jp/?hl=en
What’s on your list?
I could go on — my wishlist is almost neverending. But now it’s your turn. What design eyecatchers are you craving this year?
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