I Love You Shop opens at Hammerpress
The I Love You Shop at Hammerpress debuts at tonight’s First Friday in the Crossroads. Inside the old-timey card shop, I Love You is a modern take on a general store attached to the two-chair hair studio that is being run by Amber Hodgson. It features small-batch products that aren’t likely to be stocked anywhere else in Kansas City.
Fat City caught up with Brady Vest of Hammerpress to talk about the new shop and how a letterpress and design studio got into the business of selling dry goods.
When you first started thinking about the spot, did you envision selling foodstuffs?
Not at all. When we first moved Hammerpress to this spot two years ago, we had no plans of carrying food items. We did, however, try selling fresh cut flowers for a total of two weeks — that was
kind of difficult due to the extremely short shelf life of flowers. We
just liked the idea of having some other kind of unexpected product in
the shop.
What food items will be featured this Friday?
The
list of products will evolve but currently
includes: Maison Bouche Chocolates, Smith Tea
products and one-pound bags of coffee from Oddly Correct Coffee Roasters
based here in Kansas City. These are particularly cool because it’s great
coffee and the owner, Gregory, hand prints all of the bags.
Can you talk a bit about what led you to select those products?
The selection of products is designed to be a collaboration between myself and Amber Hodgson, who runs the I Love You hair studio and shop.
Our main criteria is quality but we tried to select products that are
aesthetically pleasing and designed well and not available in many
other Kansas City shops, if any.
