Hobbs

This is my favourite Hobbs — it has a good light and space and an extensive range of NW3, which is my favourite line. I like the way the separate rooms seem to be neatly categorised into casual wear, work/​formal wear and wedding outfit. It used to be the flagship store until it became the Covent Garden store (which I find a bit too frenetic and crammed full to properly enjoy shopping there).
My only slight gripe with Hobbs is that they don’t tend to put mirrors in individual fitting rooms, thereby forcing you to venture out in order to review whatever you’ve tried on — I always feel a bit like a meerkat popping my head out from around the curtain to check the coast is clear before breaking from cover.
This has the obvious benefit to them of enabling the shop assistants the opportunity of sidling up to coo in your ear about how awesome you look. It has the obvious disadvantage to you of, if you actually look ridiculous and can’t quite pull off the look as you’d hoped, you have to share this humiliation before scuttling back out of sight.
However, on this occasion, I rather enjoyed it — partly because I’d managed to pick out items that I looked alright in and didn’t mind mincing around in front of the mirror for a bit basking in the affirmation of the shop assistant.
The girl in the changing room opposite was looking for a wedding outfit in anticipation of her first summer of friends’ nuptials (and Hobbs really does excel in the wedding guest arena). It was quite fun watching the array of dresses as she tried to find the perfect combination of classic sophistication and summery youthfulness, together with just the right cover-​up for those overcast afternoons to be spent shiveringly clutching a glass of bubbly whilst simultaneously trying to stop ones skirt billowing up and heels sinking into the lawn, waiting for another interminable photo session to end. Ah yes, I do love a good wedding.
And when you’re sharing mirror space with someone, it seems at best impolite and at worst a downright disregard for duty, not to volunteer your own impartial view of which outfit works best and join in the pondering of whether a flowery statement dress is versatile enough for multiple wears and questioning of whether a blue jacket would look better than the pink which might be bordering on orange. Between her, me and the shop assistant (who seemed genuinely nice) we managed to wile away quite a bit of time indulging in contemplation of the various options.
This occasion also happened to be one of those new season weekends where Hobbs generously offers 20% off purchases. The shop assistant was kind enough to alert me to this and let me know that I could still join their mailing list if I wasn’t on it already, and benefit from the discount. This was in stark contrast to the time I had wandered into the Hobbs on South Molten Street brandishing my glossy card discount voucher, whereupon it was inspected with the distrust of a school teacher presented with a dog-​eared pencil written scrap of notepaper purporting to explain how ones homework had come to be eaten by the dog.
It’s a bit of a trek for me to regularly frequent the Kings Road branch of Hobbs (not being a Sloane Ranger after all), but if in the area, I find it’s definitely worth popping in. I may or may not have purchased something on this visit (this isn’t the kind of information I like Mr W to know too much about) but if I had, I’m sure I would have been pleased with it.
Oh who am I kidding — we all know I did, and I left with a spring in my step. I like to think my co-​shopper did too.