Escape from the Christmas kitsch

Aiming for the award for the most original Christmas gift? Then we highly recommend a visit the Urban Crafts pop-up shop.
Lakensestraat/rue de Laeken in the city centre is the “craft street” par excellence in Brussels, home to wonderful, authentic shops like the Droguerie Le Lion, the Boucherie Olbrechts, and newcomers like Balls & Glory. Work by some thirteen budding craftspeople is now on display in their display windows. The “crafters” in question are young people with a passion for their crafts, the standard-bearers who will, hopefully, ensure that the knowhow of particular crafts is kept alive.

These days, craftwork can vary from planing furniture from robust tree trunks to distilling gin to making leather handbags. Urban Crafts aims to create a platform for creative young designers and craftspeople, helping them to develop their enterprises and making it possible for them to turn their passions into ways of making a living.

A temporary “Urban Crafts pop-up shop” makes these young people’s products available to consumers. For the occasion, a “shop in the shop” has been constructed, using wooden planks, at Hello James by Niyona. One of the young craftspeople in question is Fanny Vanmansart from Brussels, who studied textile design at La Cambre and is now presenting her first collection of decorative cushions and silk shawls. She draws her inspiration from the garden, creating ultra-feminine camouflage prints with abstract flower petals. People are sometimes shocked at the price of her designs: €140 is certainly not cheap for a cushion. But when you realise that every centimetre of textile has glided through her hands several times during the silkscreen printing process, and that hours of work and a great deal of love have gone into each unique cushion, you can appreciate that this is actually a fair price for work done by hand. There is an urgent need for a different balance among consumers: not everything can be left to ephemeral mass production. It is only natural that a quality product, made in Belgium by a local, is going to cost that bit more.

In addition to Vanmansart’s textiles, the pop-up shop also stocks ties, lamps, jewellery, brooches, tote bags, and gin, among other stuff. All with a made-in-Belgium label.

On 17 December, at La Tentation, the most promising “crafter” of 2015 will be chosen.

Escape from the Christmas kitsch of the Christmas market: let your search for a distinctive present take you to the pop-up shop, where you can find an individual, quality, lasting gift.

URBAN CRAFTS
POP-UP SHOP ••••
Lakensestraat 86 rue de Laeken, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-219.20.74, www.urbancrafts.tv
> 20/12, di/ma/Tu > za/sa/Sa 12 > 18.00