A Guide to Brighton by Caroline Phillips
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It’s said that Brighton is London-on-Sea - with its buzz, nightclubs, pavement cafes, City chains, independent shops, ex-Londoner residents and property prices nearly reaching capital levels. Others claim it to be the new Hamptons, a reference to the seaside resorts of Long Island frequented by middle class weekenders from New York City.
Whichever way you look at it, it seems that Brighton is a happening place.
Starting to Zing
The first plus point is that it’s less than an hour from London – although local lore has it that a train is being built that will take only twenty minutes. (The rumour-mongers are probably just trying to hike the prices for bricks and mortar even higher.)
Reading on the train I discover that, architecturally, Brighton is starting to zing: a 450 ft observation tower designed by London Eye architects David Marks and Julia Barfield (costing a cool GBP 20m) is being built on the arson and weather-savaged site of the Victorian West Pier (aka the Iron Skeleton.) And a Frank Gehry-designed (architect of the titanium-covered Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain) leisure complex which includes two futuristic towers, has just got the go-ahead.
By this stage my expectations are reaching London Eye levels. But the drive from Brighton station isn’t promising – it’s more Peckham than the Hamptons, with its pastie bars and cheap sports-clothes shops. But suddenly my urban heart is warmed as we pass Heal’s – seemingly transported from London, all 20,000 square foot of it, and stocking 40% of London’s stock.
Very Hip, Very Happening
We reach Blanch House - Brighton is boutique hotel central – a monument to kitsch in a Georgian terrace house near the seafront. Its design is decadence-meets-dirty-weekender-with-a-touch-of-bed-and-breakfast style. There’s a 70’s lounge cocktail bar, themed rooms (from Moroccan through to Renaissance) and enormous beds and power showers. Very hip, very happening.
Then it’s a short taxi ride to breakfast at Bill’s, for excellent fresh local produce and breathtaking Carmen Miranda-style presentation in a cavernous cafe with exposed brickwork, industrial metal lights, Richard Rogers style pipework and stripped pine tables: very West Coast.
Now our mission is to put ‘happening’ Brighton to the ultimate test: by running it through its shopping paces. Eight million tourists visit the city every year and spend a whopping £408 million. So there must be something to buy. But has it really lost its retro candy, vegetarian shoes and hippy style?
Not for People without Style
We make it to The Lanes (the intricate alleyways of the old fishing town,) by taxi. (Despite our best efforts, we fail to find a Tuc-Tuc, Britain’s first motorized rickshaws that tuc-tuc across the city.) There’s a distinct smell of Fair Trade, hippy influence, organic life and pastie shoes in the air.
But there’s also an energy and interesting shops: from Brick-A-Brick with its 1970s sideboard (with an urban price of GBP 1250) to ‘in my room’ with its classic mid-twentieth century designs (Eames, Panton etc) and contemporary designs alongside objects created by the owners Oliver and Michelle Learmonth. (My husband buys me a marvellously kitsch plasterwork picture - like a giant love -heart sweet and emblazoned with the words, ‘Never Forget How to Kiss.’)
Nearby is Snoopers’ Paradise, a flea market where one (nameless) stall has a retro chrome arc light and fibre glass pod chair – GBP 175 and GBP 145 respectively, prices that couldn’t be replicated in London. And all written on price tags that say, ‘Not for people without style.’
Next there’s Brighton Architectural Salvage with the usual range (some slightly cheaper than London) of period and reproduction fireplaces, doors, stained glass, light-fittings and so forth. And O Contemporary – a large space selling Andy Warhol to Bridget Riley at international art market prices and offering a clever Arts Council -inspired kind of Hire Purchase scheme for buying original works of art. (Anna Karenina by Gerald Laing costs GBP 99.50 over ten months.)
So Brighton
We take a breather at Riddle & Finns (marble bar tables with candelabra and candles burning in the day) and superb fresh fish.
Then it’s off to Gaff – ‘Great art for floors’ - with its rugs made of recycled t-shirts, cotton towelling bobble rugs, shag pile and modern designs – a sort of ethical IKEA with prices from GBP 25 for an Andalucian cottage industry floor mat to GBP 450 for a hand-tufted wool rug, and ones to your own design from GBP 120 a square metre.
We pop into a church see a funky installation in its new incarnation as art gallery called Fabrica. Then visit Choccywoccydoodah for festive chocolate sculptures from a life-size chocolate skull to Buxom Bathing Beauty (GBP 325.) They even made a solid chocolate Kylie for the V&A exhibition.
Exhausted, we return to Blanch House and flop onto our King-Size bed. Later, at Pinxto People, we have tapas. (Dinner includes, surprisingly, foie gras in the coffee.) But why should that seem strange? After all, the restaurant is in an old department store (in the bridal suite, to be precise) in a late 19th century domed room with black walls and red glass chandeliers. It's all so off-beat, alternative and hip.
It’s all just so Brighton.
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