This Christmas, gift with Bimble
By Bimble
This Christmas we’re feeling inspired to bimble around the shops. After last year’s almost exclusively online affair, it’s good to be out in the streets again, on the hunt for some festive gifts. Move over Black Friday, this Small Business Saturday UK, we’re encouraging our community to shop small, shop local, shop independent. Introducing the Bimbleworthy Gift Guide — a curated list from the Bimble team, featuring the independent London shops we’ll be buying from this holiday season.
‘Shop independent’ is our version of Lady Gaga’s ‘there can be 100 people in a room…’ If you miss the reference, simply put, we talk about independents A LOT. But with good reason — there is just so much to discover in your own neighbourhoods, or the ones you love to visit. Beyond that, Bimbling = F.U.N. taking part in festive cheer and riding social media trends, this is the reason we knew we wanted to put out a gift guide. Don’t forget, this year’s holidays are critical for the recovery of the small businesses we know and love.
Move over Fab Five, our gift guide has been curated by the Core Four at team Bimble. Handpicked recommendations of brilliant businesses to get you out and bimbling this Christmas. We’re shining a light on great, little places in London that mean something to us, where we’ve had good experiences that we want to share with the community and simply, that we think sell great gifts. (Read: gifts we’d quite like getting *hint hint*).
For the bookworm, Michaela picked out a quiet haunt on Hanbury Street in London’s East End that’s designed to feel like an infinite library. Libreria stocks books on every subject imaginable so if you’re in a bind, you’re bound to find something that will suit any taste. For your plant mama friends, PRICKLDN, a cacti and succulent haven, had to be Fatima’s top choice. Black and female-owned, their vision is to make “shopping for plants as easy as buying clothes.” Thinking of IKEA for a cacti fix, don’t be a prick.
Art lovers are covered with our gift guide too, as Julia’s picks include memberships for the Tate and Jealous Gallery in Hackney. The perfect way to up the game and make your mates jealous with your edgy, arty gift finds. And finally, for the one who has everything, the problem child every year, Francesca’s top pick is the wonderland that is Luna & Curious. They say curiosity killed the cat but we’ll leave you to find out more about this little Shoreditch concept store over at Bimble.
All of our picks reflect a notion that we at Bimble are putting at the centre of this upcoming holiday season — quality, not quantity. We want to make gifting positive, meaningful and supportive. And for us, gifting with intention is shopping independent. Because shopping independent means minimising waste, it means supporting someone’s passion, it means redistributing consumer spend to underrepresented groups, and ultimately, we believe it means having a positive impact on society.
Find our full list of favourites and recommendations on the Bimble app. And as gifting can be notoriously difficult, spread the holiday cheer by creating your own gift guides on the app to share with the whole community — we’ll be featuring our favourites in the run-up to the big day. Also coming soon, a very special transatlantic edition — keep your eyes peeled.
If you have a story you’d like to share about a great little place or other bimbling experiences, get in touch with us at hello@bimble.com
