So! As our big pre-move Sale-o-Rama and closing clear out continues in store at The Maisonette, we’re delighted to confirm that we’re spreading the bargainatiousness and offering our long distance pals a chance to get on the action via our online shop!

With all stock reduced by AT LEAST 20% (some up to 50% off!), this right here is your final chance to shop indie with Made in the Shade in its current guise. We’ll be back online later in the Spring with a whole new collection of exclusive Made in the Shade products :)

Visit the online shop at www.wearemadeintheshade.com between 10.30am Friday 20th January – 10.30pm Wednesday 25th January and get your mitts on some amazing handmade gems. Jewellery, homewares, stationery, textiles, books & zines – they’re all in there!

* oh and psssst – rumour has it the Big Bumper Dealio just might be making a comeback for a real limited time! *

S A V E    T H E    D A T E S :)

As you will already know if you’ve been keeping up to date with our blog news and regular chatter on our social media profiles on Facebook & Twitter, The Maisonette is closing forever on Thursday 26th January 2012.  Sad news, indeed – but!  But!  Before we head off to pastures news and ventures afresh, we’ve one last Made in the Shade shopping shindig up our sleeves…

Our big Maisonette finale, The Made in the Shade Sale-o-Rama, kicks off at 10.30am on Friday 6th January!  With 20% reductions applied to every single item in the shop – PLUS some amazing 50%-ers to be snapped up by eagle-eyed indie shoppers, this is one January sale that’s not to be missed.

Bargainatious shopping fun at the Sale-o-Rama runs until 6pm on Thursday 26th January.  New shopping features, fun games, EXTRA SPECIAL offers and freebie treats will be added week on week – y’know, just to keep you on your toes.  Flora the Tombola takes her final Maisonette bow, The Big Bumper Dealio makes a Sale-o-Rama comeback and we’re giving you the chance to bag some super cool Made in the Shade mementos.

This year’s Sale-o-Rama is a little different in that everything really must go! Not joking.  No exaggeration.  Our vintage furniture, display items, fittings, fixtures, props and supplies – everything DOES have a price-tag (that Jessie J doesn’t know what she’s talking about!).

We can’t WAIT to see you!

Um.  You better sit down…

At 6pm on Thursday 26th January 2012, The Made in the Shade Maisonette will close for good.

Back in 2009, Made in the Shade made a shop a home on the upper floor of  De Courcy’s Arcade.   We opened our shutters and welcomed the  first customers to our cosy retail abode on October 28th.  Since then, lots of those same customers have become friends and we’ve had such fun meeting so many more likeminds along the way.   We’ve worked our socks off to introduce our visitors to the very best in indie design, handmade and vintage finds and we’re proud to have brought many an exclusive product to Glasgow!  Of course, The Maisonette was conceived as more than ‘just a shop’.  We also curated an exclusive series of tiny exhibitions in our tiny gallery, organised stacks of Maisonette shopping parties and hosted super-special pop-up events.  Our Maisonette has also acted as the physical base for all our Made in the Shade work and has doubled as an office, a studio, a venue – all sorts of things!  Quite bonkers really given the teeny tiny size of it…  In the last two years we’ve spent more time at The Maisonette than we have in our own homes.  We will miss it terribly.

We may not have our Maisonette as a Made in the Shade home or as a permanent retail space anymore, but this is absolutely not the end for Made in the Shade and 2012 is set to be one of our most exciting years yet.  In fact, don’t think of this as ‘a closure’.  Think of it as… an expansion.  Yep.  An expansion.  Not only will Made in the Shade continue to blow your mind in Glasgow with a calendar full of new collaborative projects, events and pop-ups, but from Spring 2012, Made in the Shade will have a brand new base in London!  LONDON TOWN, baby!  London Town!  We’ve dreamed of taking Made in the Shade to London for such a long, long time and we’re so excited that it’s really happening now.  Eep!

To allow us to keep in touch with our customers across the UK – and beyond, our website and online shop will undergo some re-development.  2012 sees us working much more closely with select makers and indie labels to produce exclusive Made in the Shade collections each season.  The Made in the Shade collections will be complimented by a small range of carefully curated products according to specific themes or trends.  Pretty neat, huh?  Y’all need not panic.  We’re still your go-to-gals for all things beautiful and unusual!  You’re not getting rid of us that easy.  Infact, right now we’re currently filling our notebooks with the first story ideas for the new Made in the Shade video blog/online tv channel.  Look out for sketches, projects and interactive fun times! We’re learning all about podcasting too!  There’ll be no escape!

Since we’ve had such a brilliant time at The Maisonette.  We’ve been thinking lately that it’s only fair to close our wee shop in the same style we launched it!  Over the next month, expect a resurrection of our Peep Show posts as we dismantle our Made in the Shade HQ at De Courcy’s Arcade and  join us online for some retrospective chatter and snippets from our photo albums.  We’ll be talking to some of our customers, some of our favourite makers and we’ll be looking back at some of our in-Maisonette event highlights.  Do join us, won’t you?

“No. No!” said Carrie.

Thumbing through the issue to the street style spread, we found that none other than our Top Banana tote was pictured together with some other supercool banana themed products with the tagline, “Going Bananas!”

The customer then explained that she’d been snapped for the mag but then told us how angry she was that despite having credited The Maisonette as the stockist of the banana tote, Vogue didn’t list us :( Lovely customer gal has decided to write them a letter to ask that the tote is featured properly in a future issue!

So close! So close!

Here’s the press scan. We’re still pretty excited.

It’s Wednesday morning. It’s the 14th December. Days and days after we hosted our Made in the Shade event finale, we’ve just about recovered!

Our initial apprehension about organising the event at all and subsequent pre-Hullabaloo jitters were, we are relieved to say, utterly unfounded. With eager beaver visitors trying to sneak in before opening time and literally thousands more joining us throughout the day, we could not have hoped for a more perfect finale to the Made in the Shade event series!

To the 40 amazing designer makers and indie businesses that set up shop with us and did such a sterling job helping promote the event, we cannot thank you enough. Customers were utterly bowled over by the whole affair. Tonnes of visitors approached us to compliment the quality of work on offer and with so many of you making that extra effort with display, stall features and customer service you really did us proud. To those of you who travelled pretty huge distances to join in, hats off to you. And to our local crafty pals? It was really great to have you all in one place at Made in the Shade one last time. Not sure y’all appreciate how important it was to us to get the ol’ ‘creme of the crop’ gang back together.

To our collaborators and featured hosts, The Modern W.I & LOOP, La La Land, Lesley Barnes, YHFphoto & Neil Slorance and of course Architecture and Design Scotland – the extra oomph you added to our Hullabaloo was… super-oomphy! More visitors (big and small) engaged with public crafting than ever before thanks to the W.I and the pop-up cinema (complete with cinema tickets and pop corn made by the fair hand of Belle & Sebastian’s Sarah Martin!) proved a CRAZY hit! Sarah Graham, owner of indie boutique La La Land, pulled out all the stops in the Tower Room and wowed her customers with fashion related gifts and encouraged everyone to get involved with her art/design competitions. YHFphoto & Neil Slorance’s robot exhibit preview sold out (sold out!) and we are so very, very pleased to report that thanks to our amazing Made in the Shade customers investing generously in the LOOP project, 5 women’s charities will benefit this Christmas.

Very special thanks must go to Lesley & Sam at A&DS. Had they not invited us to host the event as part of their High Street exhibition launch weekend, the Holiday Hullabaloo idea wouldn’t have occurred to us. The gals at A&DS provided excellent support in the set-up of the event and techie whizz Lynn worked real hard to prepare the gallery space in time. Thanks too, to Ian and all the staff at The Lighthouse – with particular mentions due to Laura, Jennifer, Brian & Stewart.

Worried that perhaps our Made in the Shade event had fallen off the radar since we hadn’t held one since August 2010, Clare and I laid all the ground work to (hopefully) attract a footfall of around 1200 people. Then we prayed. We agreed that we’d be ecstatic if we reached 1500. In the end, we missed a total footfall of 3000 by a mere whisker. Our minds have been well and truly blown. To everyone who came to The Holiday Hullabaloo, we could kiss each and every one of you. Not only did you take the time out of your busy Christmas schedules to spend time with us, but you saved your pocket money and you spent it generously with teeny tiny businesses who will each really appreciate your support. Not only that, but feedback – about our organisation of the event, about the ambience, about the footfall and overall – about the great variety and quality of the work available – gave everyone involved a much needed boost. Special mention must also go to our event volunteers who, this season, knocked our blinkin’ socks off with their smiley faces and unwavering enthusiasm. To Laura, Annalisa, Lydia and ThisBadMouse – you were all amazing hostesses (and Laura, thank you for accompanying me while I hung out with Jeremy the enormous wooden light-up reindeer on Buchanan Street!). As always, massive thanks goes to our honourary Made in the Shade fellas, John & Garry.  Thank you too to our sound fella, Ken :)

To everyone who helped promote the event – you are wonderful and we really, really, really appreciate your help and support. So much Tweeting and Facebooking went on in the run up to the event and on event day and we don’t underestimate how much of an impact this had on visitor turn out. To everyone who blogged about The Holiday Hulllabaloo, who sent out mailing list messages, who displayed our e-flyer – thank you. Special mention should go to Made in the Shade gal, Clare – who traipsed around in the wind and rain hanging posters and doling out flyers in the weeks prior. Thanks too to Claire at The List for all her amazing mentions in the December issue of the mag, to Alex and Adeline at The Skinny, to Ali at The Herald, to everyone at SeeGlasgow, to Yelp and to all the other listings sites and online shopping pages that featured us. To anyone we’ve missed – apologies (but know that we’re really grateful for your help!).

At the risk of coming over incredibly schmaltzy and kicking off an utter gush-fest, we ought to say too, that the comments and feedback we received on the day made us blub. Yes. We actually BLUBBED. Carrie blubbed twice. It might sound a bit odd, but turning the music off at 5pm was a bit of ‘a moment’ for us. This was our last song at The Made in the Shade Holiday Hullabaloo.

As soon as we can snatch a moment in between festive madness at The Maisonette, we will post a collection of comments and testimonials about The Holiday Hullabaloo (or about the Made in the Shade event more generally, if you’d prefer). If you would like to submit one or if you would like to share any of your own Made in the Shade stories or event photos, then we’d love to hear from you. Please email us at: mail@wearemadeintheshade and we will feature you on the site.

For now though, here are some photos our resident snapper managed to capture (while also hosting a sell-out photography/art exhibit!).

We were thrilled to showcase one of the strongest Made in the Shade vendor line-ups EVER this season

Made in the Shade gal, Clare sits proudly beside her 'stall-on-a-stage' set up!

Old skool Made in the Shader, Leah Halliday causes a rumpus with her amazing collection of handmade and vintage finds!

Auntie M made a welcome return to Made in the Shade and kept those tums from rumblin'

Miss Lottie Lou having an "Awesome time!" :)

Lesley Barnes loved her Pop-Up Cinema graphic so much, she took it home with her!

 

'Twas great to welcome Glasgow School of Art students and alumni to The Hullabaloo!

The Made in the Shade gals got a little bit too excited when word spread that Blythe Duff was shopping indie at The Lighthouse!

WHAT

The Made in the Shade Holiday Hullabaloo

We launched the Made in the Shade event way back in 2008 and since then we’ve enjoyed fun times  entertaining visitors and showcasing the work of brilliant designer makers.  You really, really don’t want to miss this, our final boutique shopping event in Glasgow.  You’ll kick yourself if you do!

WHEN

Saturday 10th December 2011

10.30am – 5pm

Yup – that’s THIS Saturday!

WHERE

The Lighthouse*, Glasgow.

The Lighthouse is located on Mitchell Lane (just off Buchanan Street).

You’ll find The Holiday Hullabaloo in Gallery 1 on the first floor of the building.  Zoom up on the escalator, whirr up in the life – or trod on up the stairs! We’ll be waiting to greet you…

*Contrary to popular belief, The Lighthouse didn’t close down!  The team are working hard in the building as always and would love for you to visit!  The Holiday Hullabaloo – what better reason to swing by and say hello?

VENDORS

This season we welcome 40+ of the very best designer makers around to take part in our final festive fling.  Expect to browse and buy textiles & homewares, clothing & accessories, art, photography and stationery.  Look out for jewellery, millinery, vintage treasure and the flippin’ best selection of unusual, handmade giftware you ever did see.

With makers travelling from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling, Aberdeen, Salford, Fife – and from all sorts of places in between, this roll-call of craft & design talent is set to blow your socks right off!

For the full vendor  and a proper taster of who’s selling what, click here.

SPECIAL GUESTS.  SPECIAL FEATURES.

A Made in the Shade event isn’t a Made in the Shade event without some extra special touches and fun features!  We are delighted to welcome a troupe of amazing special guests to The Hullabaloo this season.

The Holiday Hullabaloo is held in association with Architecture & Design Scotland.  Get involved in A&DS’ ‘Highstreet’ exhibit and help build and populate a DIY cardboard highstreet!  Amazing.

Artist/animator Lesley Barnes presents her pop-up cinema (SO excited!) and indie fashion boutique, LA LA  LAND curates a mega ‘Interactive Fashion Room’ complete with We Are Faux Lash Bar, freebies, a fashion illustration masterclass – and more.  On top of that we have those talented gals from the Garnethill Modern W.I popping by to show off their amazing knitted charity blankets and to host a special drop-in DIY workshop.

A late addition to the ‘special features’ gang, artist Neil Slorance and photographer Garry Maclennan, launch their second joint, robot-tastic exhibit, “Unwanted” at the Hullabaloo!

Since this is our last event in our hometown, our resident photographer will host a Photographic Guest Book.  Scrawl feedback and comments on our cardboard sheets and let Garry Maclennan take your portrait holding your message.  We’ll collate all the photos and display them on our website!  Sweet, huh?

EXTRA!  EXTRA!  READ ALL ABOUT IT!

In the run up to the event, we’ve gathered some lovely press support.   We loved that The List called us ‘foremost purveyors of all things pretty and independently designed’.  We loved even more that they described us as ‘craft heavyweights’ – but we were proper chuffed that The Holiday Hullabaloo was featured as one of their Top 5 Christmas market events on the go this winter!   The Skinny very kindly featured our event too and gave a brilliant preview of the La La Land Interactive Fashion Room :)  It goes without saying that we placed event listing in all the usual hotspots, but we were really thrilled to find that See Glasgow:  Scotland With Style , GUM and Yelp have helped promote The Hullabaloo too!  My Daily features The Hullabaloo as a genuine alternative to humdrum high street shopping and this week we’re keeping our peepers peeled for mentions in Stylist/Emerald Street and The Herald.  If you spot us anywhere else, do let us know! 

Taking up residence in Gallery 1′s Tower space, the La La Land pop-up is more than just a stall space.  Yes siree…  Get your brain around this bundle of fashion joy!

BROWSE & BUY WORK FROM INDIE DESIGNERS…

Look out for amazing collections by local designers.  Of course!  Get ready to own garments and accessories by: Upcycling wonderwoman (and long time Made in the Shade favourite) – designer & seamstress, Jennie Loof;  Purveyor of the crazy popular and oh-so-chic Hollyhood, Chou Chou;  Creator of bold and beautiful textiles, Dana Finnigan;  Eleanor’s Riot – indie label combining unusual fabrics with elegant tailoring, Isolated Heroes – pioneers of vivid, tribal ready-to-wear garments with unmistakable edge – and Rowan Joy; an Edinburgh based label mixing up vintage & modern patterns, prints and colourways to produce gloriously feminine, playful clothing.

… AND CULT FASHION LABELS!
If your mind is gonna be blown, it ought to be blown at the Made in the Shade Holiday Hullabaloo, right?  Also available to browse & buy in the La La Land Fashion Room >  Tatty Devine, Lazy Oaf and Brat & Suzie!  Yes. Really.

LOCALLY PRODUCED COSMETIC  PRODUCTS & PRE-CLUB BEAUTIFY

Abso-blinkin’-lutely!  We’re going beeauty bonkers at the Holiday Hullabaloo.  Hell, it’s Christmas after all!  If e’er there was a time for hand-painted, ultra-glam, statement nails – this is it.  Swing on into La La Land’s Fashion Room for a finger tip makeover.  From leopard print, discoball sparkle and purty bows, DIY Nails will ensure your paws are as well accessorised as the rest of you!  And to top it off – you can also take part in the La La Land/DIY Nails competition.

So – your paws are sorted out.  But what of those peepers?  Well now.  (We are ‘Eeeep’-ing outloud).  We are thrilled to introduce…  We Are Faux.  Featured in TONNES of fancy mags  (Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Rolling Stone…), We Are Faux are the go-to gals for handmade mega-lashes.  So painfully cool, they’ve even collaborated with Ladytron – actual Ladytron.  Not only that, but their products have graced the lids of many a celeb, including our very own Sons & Daughters (just the ladies – we think).

GET ARSTY!

With rumours of live fashion illustration, an indie fashion Q&A and other interactive features, Sarah will keep y’all entertained in The Fashion Room.  If, however, you just need to release some creative energy and have the sudden urge to colour in – she’s got that covered too!  The woman has prepared for almost every eventuality!

In association with popular range of superstar  Colour Me Good colouring books, Sarah invites you to colour your favourite fashion icon (Kate Moss maybe?  Or Anna Wintour?).  The finished drawings will be exhibited in the La La Land boutique!  Pretty neat, huh?

Add to that, an exclusive Fashion Illustration Masterclass,  stacks of fashion-related stocking fillers AND freebies!  Howz about tha then?  :)

Maisonette customers, you will be familiar with Lesley’s work.  We’ve been proud to stock her amazing leather bookmarks, cards and prints since opening our shop over two years ago.  Or – you might remember this, the surprise design she made for the Made in the Shade gals specially!