The Rise of the
E
ver returned home
from an evening of
merriment and wondered what it’d be like to
crawl through the front door
with a cupcake instead of a
kebab? What if you were
to come back with newly-learnt skills instead of
having obliterated the majority of your brain cells with
Michelle McManus-sized
sambuca shots?
Have
we gone completely insane? We’ll bet y ou a bag
of wool we haven’t. This
wonderful phenomenon is
the nouvelle vague of the
social scene, more widely
known as the Craft Night.
Gone are the days
where a flash of the free
bus pass was the solitary
requirement for entry to a
soiree of knitting and china teacups; these nights
are strictly 18+ and welcome the un-wise mind
of youth with cocktails,
crayons and more paper
than you’d find in Peter
Stringfellow’s
Pre-Nup.
Filtering through the
depths of the dim lights
and back streets of London, these Craft Nights
are finding their way from
the men’s working clubs of
Bethnal Green to the high
streets of Caledonian Road.
Drink, Shop & Do is a
prime example of an establishment that embraces almost all forms of crafts activity, ranging from the ever
popular ‘Play with Clay
80s Style’ to the more ambient ‘Scrabble Sundays’
with a sprinkling of ‘Cocktail o’clock’ in between.
As if that wasn’t enough
to convince you to whip
out the aprons and curl up
your fringes, this old Victorian bathhouse sells products from emerging designers as well as vintage
furniture and homewares,
meaning that you could
potentially alarm housemates and family alike by
leaving a smart armchair
by the front door instead of
the usual neon traffic cone.
But don’t think that
the capital is the only place