"You know we had someone stop by and ask if we had chart paper or something" we overheard Malini Malik, co-founder of General Items tell Vijay Sekhar, the chef and owner of 23rd Street Pizza, one Sunday afternoon. No, we weren't eavesdropping, General Items is a small design store: it took us probably 7-10 steps to cover the entire store. It is also London-based Tiipoi's first brick-and-mortar store in India.
The name came about as a homage of sorts because earlier it was a stationery and general item store catering to the students of RBANM's High School. As a design store, you'll find Tiipoi's collection featuring cookware, serveware, and textiles to homeware pieces. The Water Tower mini planter from them has our eye. So does their new Channapatna-inspired Tipu collection of pepper mills and rolling pins. As an occasional gallery, the current showcase is titled Objects of Emotions featuring Casegoods, Tosha Jagad, Material Immaterial, Claymen, and Lovebirds. Claymen needs no introduction but it's the ceramic pieces from Tosha or Studio Tosh that we love. (Should have got that Nekomi Block Cat when we had the opportunity.)
The brands are small and independent, and the collection is equally small and limited, so while it might pinch your wallet on days when you care about your wallet, on other days General Items is the kind of store where you can pick up gifts for yourself or for your friends who have fine taste in aesthetics.
They also have a few branded items -- a red tote bag and a small little black (well, red in this case) book that we plan to pick up on our next visit.
