There are a few holy grail shops for brands small and Large on the childrenswear circuit, shops all labels aspire to be carried by, shops that can make or break you as a brand, shops that have their ever-evolving-finger on every pulse, trend and fleeting whim on the market – from Smallable in France, to Ladida in the US or Mister Jones and Miss Katie in Belgium, these shops are consistently at the forefront of what today’s evolved customer wants from ceramics and babygrows through to teething rings and paired-back separates.

No single small but fierce and far-reaching Independent shop epitomises this zeitgeist more than Cissy Wears whose fevered Instagram following currently numbers 63.6k and whose beautiful selection of minimalist muted homeware and fashion is frequently copied but never matched. And yet.. while Cissy Wears’ edit is eclectic and always ahead of its time – from Grace & Green Eco – Friendly Tampons to carpet beaters and a beautiful curated book selection – the shop still subscribes to the single river running dreamily through the purveyors of all aesthetic sensibility in the childrenswear market today – Bobo Choses.

To celebrate the latest Bobo ChosesWe Cosmos drop, Cissy Wears did It their way by inviting UCL’s astronomer, physicist, author/ god Professor Raman Prinja to the new Coal Drops Yard shop in Kings Cross to blend his own magical mist of stardust with that of Bobo Choses’ by giving a talk on the Cosmos, the big bang and some dubious looking aliens as well as signed copies of his extraordinarily beautiful book ‘Planetarium’.

I can’t lie, before the professor began and as a herd of immaculately dressed bouncy children bustled passed me into the shop at 4pm in an after-school-rush, I questioned the sanity of the endeavour, preparing myself for twenty minutes of fidgeting, itching and megaphoned whispers involving the words ‘Over’ and ‘Yet’. The micro lecture however, was a surprising, sincere and shocking success with quietly captivated, enlightened children, some of whose knowledge of the cosmos – even at the age of six – ‘outed’ my own utter ignorance of universal matters beyond the realms of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

Thus Professor Raman Prinja’s passionate but accessible scientific rhetoric transported a new generation of would be Universe explorers through the cosmos, culminating in a short but effective big bang animation that delighted its audience and which was subsequently Re:Re:Wound ad nauseum to extreme delight as a Grand Finale. The whole effect resonated peculiarly well with Bobo Choses’ Other-Worldy Womenswear Collection and reflected a novel and inspired pairing by Cissy Wears that was simply symptomatic of the shops’ enduring individuality and stratospheric popularity.

As the Professor signed copies of ‘Planetarium’, took leave of his micro fans and I fittingly wandered out into the late afternoon Sun, it was hard to imagine a nicer way to spend a Friday afternoon.

Professor Raman Prinja

Cissy Wears store

Unit 13, Coal Drops Yard,
Stable Street,
London N1C 4DQ

Opening times
Monday to Saturday from 10am until 8pm,
Sunday from 12pm to 6p

www.cisseywears.com