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| Liscious Interiors |
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As a Jericho resident, I have to admit that the area has appeared that her makeup has been slightly smudged over the last year or so, with a couple of prominent buildings lying empty and others failing to quite capture the market they desire but with a new door opening, so is a new lease of life that is being breathed back into one of the most interesting and artisanal areas around the heart of Oxford.
Liscious has moved into No. 125 Walton Street, previously occupied by a much loved Mind shop selling second hand books and more recently lying empty for a period of something approaching a year. It is now home to a veritable cornucopia of the most intriguing items that you could see on sale anywhere in Oxford. Situated over three floors on this lively strip of Jericho, the fashionably fatigued décor sits in marked contrast to the glamour of most of the items for sale. You can discover beautifully ornate mirrors, Edwardian Chaise Longue and opulently designed fabrics sitting beside antique fans, art deco chandeliers and Victorian picnic hampers. In fact, such a variety of stuff is for sale, it defies summary or categorization.
On arrival, you will most likely be met by Fran or Walter, a husband and wife team who have worked together constantly over their last 24 years together and who have become recognized from running the shop in its previous home in a fabulous building off the Banbury Road in Summertown for the last three years, prior to which it was ironically started in the heart of Jericho when they were resident some twelve years ago, they actually started here the same time as that other fine Jericho resident Monsieur Blanc.
If any room in your house needs that one special piece of furniture that visiting guests will salivate over, then I’d recommend you visit Liscious. Free from the awful generic furniture that you would find in Habitat or any of their competitors, this place only seems to sell stuff that has sufficient character to match its style. As I looked around, three customers passed through the shop, all of whom shared Fran’s delight for and devotion to furniture of a variety of ages and styles. In fact the number of people pausing dreamily at the windows before passing on or dropping in makes you realize that Jericho really has come back to life.
These are perfect credentials for today's economy. The philosophy at Liscious is that if something is made well, it should be restored rather than disposed of for something less well made from the current day - Something a hundred years old will last another hundred if restored well, making the value of any of their pieces so much more than how they simply look.
Added to which they’ll buy anything interesting that you have fallen out of love with engaging a new version of the age old Bartering system, the spirit of reciprocity and of working clever, rather than simply working hard.
It could be said that this area of town is indicative of a new phase of British Capitalism, that people don’t want to spend their ‘harder than ever’ earned money on something without any character, so Liscious is something of a zeitgeist phenomenon which is making the most of the economy – this is Style with Sustainability in practice.
Reviewed by Max Mason |
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