Consuming Interest

Gifts from Cosmopolis

By LESLIE ADRIAN

A VERY bright idea of Woollands in Knights- bridge started me off this year looking for Christmas presents from abroad. On the third floor of Woollands there is a large display of gifts from all over the world, from Alaska to Mexico, from Cambodia to the US, from Bolivia to

Tonga. Prices in this fascinating collection are from 2s. 6d. upwards and you'll enjoy a visit to this round-the-world display.

Among the national shops that sell goods from other countries there are, I'm afraid, a fair num- ber that are no better than souvenir shops full of rather awful craftsy-daftsy stuff. On the other hand, if you take the trouble to look around London you will find a number of shops that bring us the best that other countries can provide at prices that are not by any means always ex- orbitant. Their proprietors, who are more often than not their buyers too, are usually people with excellent taste who are not above offering a bargain so long as it has merit in, say, its design. Tivoll for example, at 223 Brompton Road, SW3, is run by Leonore Lewisohn, a young woman who believes that things Scandinavian don't have to be as clinical and inhospitable- looking as they often are. Her shop is full of bright colours, especially the Christmas corner in the form of three caves in gold, silver and copper. She has a magnificent choice of Scandin- avian furniture, lighting, glass; porcelain, oven- ware, jewellery, table linen, toys -'and children's ware. I would particularly recommend her wall hangings, hand-printed on cotton, looking like something half-way between an American college pennant and a Japanese kakemono (12s. 9d. to £2 10s.); sweaters from Denmark for children and adults; Norwegian slippers lined and trimmed in sealskin fur (children to adults, £1 16s. 6d. to £3 6s.); children's Advent calendars with sections or small presents to be opened day by day; gift tags and wrapping paper (matching) at ten tags for 2s. 6d. and three sheets for Is. 9d.; a good selection of Danish silver jewellery de- signed by Hans Hansen; and ashtrays, cigarette cups and bowls of aluminium covered with enamel in six really lovely colours.

Indiaeraft in Oxford Street at Marble Arch looks at first sight as if it might be no more than a souvenirshop and a lot of what it offers will be familiar to any traveller or serviceman who has been to India. Take a closer look, though, and you'll find some small, very gaily coloured clay horses, donkeys, camels, elephants, giraffes and, best of all, owls for from 5s. to 10s. (use them as decoratiOn-don't give them to the children because they can lick the paint off); good hand- made sandals' for indoor wear in 'bright Yellow,

red or blue with gold decoration for 55s.; leather poufs (Moroccan, not Indian) from 57s. 6d. to 14 gns. (stuffed for 30s. extra); joss sticks, if you like that sort of thing, smelling of Kashmir saffron, flowering cactus, Indian poppy or jungle orchid at Is. 6d. for twenty-four or sandalwood cones which last longer at 2d. each or 3S. 6d. for twenty-four. Very few European women can wear a sari but, if yotoknow a girl who has the right sort of panache to carry it off, try giving her one of Indiacraft's Benares silk stoles. Those gossamer-thin, very loosely Woven ones cost from only 15s. 6d. to 50s.; brocaded ones start at 4 gns. and go up to about £30. Choose your girl care- fully, though, and don't blame me if it looks ridiculous on her. A very good bargain,, again for the right girl, is a.Naga shoulder bag, hand- woven in beautiful colours and marvellous de- signs for 18s., 21s. and 24s.

While you're in the Marble Arch area and thinking of things Eastern call, for yoiir own pleasure, on Mr. Lee Chong at the Chinese Gallery, 13 New Quebec Street. He has a fine collection of figures and landscapes in soapstone from 2 gns. up. Borrow his large magnifying glass to see the detail and you'll think you're watching Cinerama. i don't know what you'll think when you see his small piece of Sung priced at 12,500 gns. As he told me, if you were to put it on sale at, say, Harrods at 5 gns. no one would buy it. To amuse hirnselfr he -occasionally puts a valuable piece in the window with a ridiculously low price on it. No one has succeeded in taking the smile off his face yet. You'll like Mr. Lee.

A few doors away, as many will know already, at 23 New Quebec Street, are J. and A. °snit°, who have a very large collection of all the less expensive things Scandinavian. I bought their beautiful and extremely simple crib last year and they have it again this year (77s. 6d.).- Vasa is a new shop at 31 Lowndes Street, just by the Carlton Tower Hotel. The proprietor has a brilliant eye for the right thing in the right place

for the right purpose and, since what he is con- cerned about is quality, design and price in that order, you will be delighted with nearly every- thing you see in the way. of furniture, glass, china and cutlery. You'll be even more delighted at the good, inexpensive things that he displays as carefully as the expensive ones. He has some very well designed Austrian glasses from only 3s. 6d. to 9s. 6d. each; mottled brown Danish dairy howls which make a welcome change from the ubiquitous white and blue mixing bowls (12s. 6d. to 25s.); and some beautifully made baskets from Thailand, at from 17s. 6d. to 25s.

Mexicana has a festive sound about it and that's exactly how it looks too (89 Lower Sloane

Street). The shop is decorated with brightly coloured tin stars (8s. 6d. and 17s. 11d.) and Christmas trees (1 gn. and 2 gns.) which catch the light brilliantly. You'll find some Mexican glassware at the very reasonable price of .6s. a tumbler (8s. 6d. frosted) in three different colours and finger bowls for 7s. 6d. (frosted 12s. 6d.).

They have the gayest piggy-banks you've ever seen and, as a decoration, doves with paper wings, wax head and eggshell body for 9s. I Id. A bargain : eggs, pears and mangoes in onyx for only 10s. to 12s. 6d. almost as pleasing to the touch and eye as those marble• eggs you can pay 3 gns. or more for elsewhere. Casa Pupo at 60 Pimlico Road, SW1, has been the delight of all who know it since it opened its new premises last July. Sefior Casasus, the Castil- lian who owns it, also designs many of the goods he sells but they are made mostly by families in Spain. It's one of the loveliest shops anywhere and I don't believe you'll see a single object in it that you don't like. I couldn't begin to list what you'll find there among the rugs, ceramics, china and glass and can only suggest that you go and look for yourself. If you want to spend a lot of money the choice will be yours anyway, but if you're looking for not too expensive things this year the baskets of wicker and palm in the patio are excellent value for from 5s. to 2 gns. In one of the caves downstairs you'll find some primi- tive, vividly coloured, hand-made dinner services in four different designs. A complete setting in the one 1 liked best works out at £2 7s. 6d. but you can buy any single piece by itself. Eight- inch-square tiles in marvellous colours and de- signs can only be ordered three to four months ahead but they are worth waiting for and can be used outdoors, in floors or on walls.

The conscience of the advertising industry appears to grow more tender in direct propor- tion to its increasing wealth. Last year £470 million was spent on advertising, nearly one- tenth of it by ten large companies in the food, drink, tobacco, soap and detergent, petrol and pharmaceutical industries. It is in this area, for the most part, that a lot of the skirmishing about misleading claims and unethical advertisements takes place.

In spite of what Messrs. Ralph Harris and Arthur Seldon, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, say in their latest book, Advertising and the Public (Andre Deutsch, 30s.), there is a lot of chicanery in advertisements. Has anyone yet identified these magical and mysterious constitu- ents Loramine, Gardol and Ilium? And what precisely is 'pure' Silvikrin? Personally, I am also irritated by claims such as that made by Lux: 'Pure mild Lux soap is the beauty care of nine out of ten film stars.' Which ten, and were they given it or did they buy it, and may we know why the tenth decided against it?

Harris and Seldon comment that 'the infor- mation that Lady X washes with a named soap may increase the pleasure in using it.' And `if a bath soap, a fountain-pen, or a carpet gives pleasure when the consumer thinks it is used by a duchess or a television performer, then he is being more rational than his critics. . . .' But in the first place, how many of us believe that the duchess had ever heard of the soap or the pen before she was paid to sponsor them? And in the second, the appeal is so obviously to the lower levels of intelligence and to snobbery that, although it may not be harmful in any serious sense, it is still a trick and nothing more.

It is the slick trickery associated with adver- tising that makes the whole business seem sharp, superficial, strident and parasitic. If we keep our heads about it and think coolly we are able to see the uses of advertising, and to acknowledge it as a part of modern economic life. Where disbelief sets in is with the exaggerated claims: for a dog food that it prolongs the animal's active life (whatever that may mean), for a hair dressing that it attracts women, for a soap or a beverage that it will solve our social problems, or, worst of all, for a variety of tonic wines, pills and doses that they will improve our health, stave off the effects of old age or stabilise our nervous systems. Looked at literally (which may or may not be what the advertiser is suggesting), these claims are no better than nonsense. Unfortu- nately they can occasionally be dangerous non- sense. But this is hard to prove, and the Advertising Association's Advertising Standards Authority is no doubt prepared to find it so.

The Harris and Seldon book is really another apologia for advertising, a sequel to their Adver- tising in Action. As such it is a competent piece of work; competent because it assembles all the favourable arguments between two covers. Hardly at all does it show the glaring weaknesses of this powerful, young, and sometimes irre- sponsible, quasi-profession.