The £100 Pound Shop

~ john hutnyk

Trinketization is clearly escalating over the river in Dalston, and I can’t say I disapprove.

I have said before: Shopping is civil war. Here is evidence.

But then, its choice, so do head out to support this venture where you can (perhaps by shoplifiting?)

Point your browser here:
http://www.onehundredpoundshop.com/our_promise_to_you.html

(thanks to Joel McKim for discovering this)

 

Published by john hutnyk

Writer on culture, cities, diaspora, history, film, prisons, colonialism, education, Marxism. Studied and taught in Australia at Deakin and Melbourne Universities; and in the UK in Manchester University’s Institute for Creative and Cultural Research; before moving to Goldsmiths University of London in 1998, and becoming Academic Director of the Centre for Cultural Studies in 2004-2014. Has held visiting researcher posts in Germany at the South Asia Institute and Institute fur Ethnologie at Heidelberg University, and Visiting Professor posts in InterCultural Studies at Nagoya City University Japan, Zeppelin University and Hamburg University, Germany, Sociology at Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul, Turkey and at the Graduate Institute for Social Research and Cultural Studies, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. Immediate past adjunct Professor of RMIT University, Melbourne and GIAN Visiting Professor Jadavpur Uni Kolkata. Currently Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

8 thoughts on “The £100 Pound Shop”

  1. Ah finally… a subversion of the bargain mentality, which is of course, a myth, and precisely the culture that has caused consumption to be the only means to economic recovery (apparently).. well.. short of a cultural revolution anyway…

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  2. a cultural revolution is not a start, its the continuation… but es, this is pretty special, slightly mad, and smarter than your average prank. Maybe kate Moss can do the modelling?

    Ahh, the alarms have just been set off in CCS – all out! No work.

    Might go to the cafe and plot out plas for a chain strore called Trinketization. Much to learn from the 100 pound shop, but I do believe they need to attach a reading list.

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  3. Hi John and Alison.

    Armstrong and Miller on TV the other night (I paraphrase): “Excuse me madam, I notice you’re interested in buying expensive organic produce with idiosncratic imperfections – but I know of a farmers’ market a few streets away where you can buy the same apples for three times the price!”

    The logical consequence of bargain-buying’s contribution to global capitalism: £100 “bargain”-buying’s contribution to local regeneration.

    Now I have a second purpose aside from being a my first (“the purpose of a customer is to buy from retail businesses”): I’ll pop into the Waitrose in Islington for lunch.

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    1. In a similar vain… there’s an episode of The Simpsons where in the title sequence Marge goes into a $ Mart and sees her dress for a third of the price she bought it for… so she buys three…

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  4. yes, Mo, there is a great comic tradition that should be referenced here Pythons: ‘Went shopping, bought a piston engine’ ‘Why?’ ‘It was a bargain’. The piston of course must have been going cheap in the wholesale sell off of the countries’ industrial base, in favour of the comically named service economy and other affective scams. I think the 100 pounders are onto something here, Stephen Fry should do the knock-off ethnography of it (to match his mock cod-autobiography).

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  5. Having just been back to Dalston in May after a couple of years away, I think this is a great commentary on the regeneration process going on there. Add a few brightly painted, cheaply constructed condo units and the neighbourhood is “transformed.” Same Dalston, twice the price.

    It’s also a nice send up of the “value added” promises of the creative economy. The thing is, with a little care and devotion, those pound store items really do look pretty fantastic. I’m saving up for the Victorian Lady Bust.

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    1. yep, I want some of those. I can see other potential applications too. Laser-guided back scratcher, lazer-guided slingshot, laser-guided champagne glass… laser guided budget cuts..

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