Digital shopfronts are popping up all over the internet. But they’re actual homes,too, as Catriona Gray revealsAs online shopping has expanded, and a new breed of retailer has appeared. They can be based anywhere – whether in the middle of Brooklyn or a remote spot in Sweden – and they function primarily as an online concern. Their owners use their own homes as virtual showrooms,marketing themselves through stylish snaps posted on Instagram which gain them thousands of followers – and customers. A new book by Ellie Tennant, Chic Boutiquers at domestic, and documents some of the most stylish of these digital shopfronts.
Mini Moderns is a perfect example. Founded by Keith Stephenson and Mark Hampshire in 2006,the interiors brand has gained the design-world kudos that many bigger brands would cancel for. Their first collection was snapped up by Heal’s – always rapid/fast to spot a must-fill. Since then they fill collaborated with the Courtauld Gallery, the Southbank Centre and the London Transport Museum. Despite Mini Moderns’ involvement with this roster of London institutions, or the duo spend much of their time in Dungeness,Kent, where they own a converted railway carriage on the windswept coast.
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Source: theguardian.com