Everyone needs a pocket-sized notebook for jotting down those moments of inspiration – and none are more eye-catching than the Field Notes memo book.
If you’re after that wartime vibe, this has it by the bucket load, as well as offering 48 pages of graph paper and room for your personal essentials. Oh yes – and you don’t just get one, there are three books per pack.
And each pack sells for £7.95.
Find out more at the Design Museum website
Does the above look familiar? Yes, it does indeed look like the iconic Alvar Aalto Stool 60, featured on this site way back in 2006. But it isn’t – this is the Ikea Frosta Stool.
The difference? Well, a good £90 for a start, but there are other subtle differences too, with the Ikea stool (designed by Gillis Lundgren) standing a little bit taller than the 1933 modernist classic and with a finish that’s no match for the original.
But both stacking stools are made of birch and both are almost identical to the untrained eye. Which makes the £7.99 price tag for the Ikea Frosta possibly the deal of the year.
Find out more at the Ikea website
The phone everyone is talking about this month is undoubtedly the Colombo phone, but if you don’t manage to get hold of one then perhaps you can be consoled with this Swiss Desk Station Model M29 Telephone.
It is a reconditioned phone based on a vintages Bundespost design. It is available in a sleek black finish and has a distinctive high cradle that gives it an elegant look.
It costs rather more than the Colombo phone, priced at £215 from Design Shop UK.
The Ruspa Table Lamp was designed by the Italian architect and designer Gae Aulenti for the company Martinelli Luce in 1968.
Best known for her work on large-scale museum projects, including Musée d’Orsay in Paris and the Contemporary Art Gallery at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Aulenti also turned her hand to interior design. Perhaps this heritage goes someway to explaining the price of the Ruspa Lamp (I did a double-take when I first read it myself), which is currently on sale for £2796.95.
I suspect this won’t be a realistic purchase for most of us, but if you do have the money and want a classic table lamp, it can be ordered online from Made in Design.
Retro reproductions of good quality are hard to come by, and even then it can often seem like you’ve only found the same thing everyone else has. For truly rare reproductions, Big Beautiful Barbara Brown is the perfect shop.
With many reproduction vintage dresses from the 1920s – 1950s, there’s something perfect for almost every occasion. Bound to be a big hitter is their range of Marilyn Monroe dresses, beautifully made to copy the icon’s looks. This Some Like It Hot dress is a great copy, made from duchess satin and with a great fit.
This dress costs £65, and like all their others is made to order by hand.
Habitat’s latest range includes a shelving unit that’s reminiscent of the 1950s – the Habitat Enshi shelving unit.
Designed by Bethan Gray and constructed from dark stained oak, the unit is a mix of shelving and closed storage units for the items you want to show off, as well as the ones you want to keep away from public gaze.
Standing just over 6ft (189cm) high, the unit sells for £799. But note it does require home assembly.
Find out more at the Habitat website
