Shopper’s Diary: Hostem in London by JamesPlumb

On a recent visit to London, I stumbled across Hostem, an edgy men's clothing store located on Redchurch Street in the ever-evolving neighborhood of Shoreditch. The interior was orchestrated by Britain's latest design prodigies, Hannah Plumb and James Russell, who go by the name JamesPlumb and "work with the overlooked and the discarded, taking time-worn antiques and cast-offs to produce one-off assemblages, luminaires, and interiors." The duo layers Dickensian grittiness with the romance of the British poets Keats and Shelley; in the Hostem interiors, they repurposed a vintage church pew as a shop counter and hung a chandelier fashioned from a cluster of lampshades above. Walls and ceilings are lined with hand-painted hessian, and Swedish linen curtains obscure the windows. Caged bulbs are suspended at different lengths from extra long wires, while concrete plinths are used as displays. It all adds up to an air of repurposed elegance.

Above: JamesPlumb hung panels of hessian on the walls and from the ceiling to create a tented effect; an antique church pew serves as a counter, and a chandelier of vintage lamp shades adds a Victorian note.