This month I've written a piece for The London Magazine about museum shops and how bloody brilliant they are. It'll be out soon and when it is I will post a link. While I was doing my extensive and hard-hitting research I had it in mind to include the Southbank Centre Shop until I realised that technically it's not actually a museum shop it's just got the same sort of high brow shopping vibe what with it being attached to something cultural. So I was delighted to hear about a collaboration they are doing with the lovely printmaker Michelle Mason (who I've been writing about for years) which means I now have an excuse to talk about them both.

Michelle recently launched an interiors shop in partnership with Tim Painter on Columbia Road called Mason & Painter which is open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and sells a collection of very appealing vintage, up-cycled, new - and always colourful - items for the home (pictured here). They are brining their idiosyncratic style to the Southbank Centre Shop which already sells a great range of items such as philosophical stationery from Alain de Botton's The School of Life plus mugs, prints and other gifty things. For the month of March Mason and Painter will be taking over the space with a curated collection of existing products and a selection of items they've chosen. The right styling can make or break a shop so it will be interesting to see what they do.