HtCC – Oliver Bonas

When I was at university, there were very few shops actually on campus to distract us between lectures. There was the little supermarket cum stationary shop cum clothes shop cum copy shop (What didn’t that shop have? It made the giant Tesco Extra that I shop at now seem like a tiny corner shop), the bookshop (with a disproportionate amount of books for my school – finance people like to read too!) and what we would refer to as the “pretty pretty shop”

For those of you who know Aber, it’s actually the arty shop inside the Arts Centre, but my bestie and I have never let silly little things like real names distract us. (After 10 (!!!) years, I still don’t know the real name of Cafe Perv – or for those of you who don’t know, it’s the cafe at the bottom of the arts centre. Good mochas there.)

So much of our (my) student loan was spent there, I was almost glad to move back to Chester after my course finished because as nice as I’m sure Chester is for you tourist types, it is dull as watching infomercials for a week if you’re a resident.

Bristol, on the other hand, has many gorgeous shops, but luckily (or unluckily, depending on whether you are me or my debit card), they are mostly in the Clifton/Redland/Cotham areas of the city and close before I even get out of work.

Then Oliver Bonas came to Bristol. Now I have to walk quickly past the store, without looking at it because otherwise I’d be drawn in. I allowed myself a wander recently, and fell in love with the majority of ~*things*~ there.For those who haven’t been, it’s a shop with a small selection of clothing for both men and women, accessories and homeware. It’s the homeware that I’m especially attracted to at the moment – a sign of growing up?

Here’s a few of my picks if someone would like to let me go a tiny bit crazy with their credit card: don’t worry, I only want one of the sofas, I just don’t know what colour!