FEATHER SHOPPING IN SOHO, LEFT EMPTY HANDED

There is a shop on Berwick Street called Fan New Trimmings, I stumbled on it when I was walking back from Macculloch & Wallis to my hotel.

Number 47, right in the middle of Soho. It's been there since 1986, which you can tell from the gold lettering above the window and absolutely nothing else, because the inside is packed floor to  ceiling with every kind of trim and sewing notions you would need.. Long and narrow — the aisle is one person wide, and if someone comes the other way, one of you is turning sideways. The floorboards are old and bare and they creak. I liked it immediately.

I went in June. I was in London anyway and I'd been carrying around this idea about making a feather brooch — I'd seen one online, one of those big soft ostrich ones that sits on a lapel and moves when you walk past it. I'd looked at it for about a week. I'd decided I was going to make it. This was the shop that was going to make it happen.

WHAT IN THE SHOP

The whole left-hand wall is buttons. Floor to ceiling, carded and hung on pegboard, and if you have any interest in buttons at all you will lose fifteen minutes there without noticing. Below that, ribbon on spools. Down the middle, thread cones racked up in color order. Buttons are the things I always overbuy, although this time I had more control I did exactly the same at Mood in New York and came home with a bag of them I still haven't used.

The feathers are all at the front, and they're not laid out flat like I'd pictured — they're boas, hanging full length so you walk in through them. Ostrich, marabou, the long wispy ones. Green next to purple next to a dusty pink next to black. They move when the door opens. There's a display near the front too, feather fascinators already made up, which did nothing for my composure given I'd spent a day in London learning to make hats.

THIS IS WHERE IT FELL APART

I couldn't find the post.

I'd seen the brooch on Instagram. I hadn't saved it. I hadn't screenshotted it. I had a very confident memory of a feather brooch and zero information about how much ostrich feather makes a feather brooch, and I stood there in the middle of Soho scrolling backwards through weeks of my own saved folder like that was going to help.

It did not help.

So I had a choice — buy an amount of feather based on vibes and hope, or leave. And I want to say I made the brave choice. I didn't. I walked out with nothing, told myself I'd come back later in the week with the numbers, and then didn't get back there before I flew home.

The brooch does not exist. The feathers are still on the wall. I have a video of them and that's the whole haul.

IF YOU ARE GOING

Take the reference with you. Screenshot it, save it, write the measurements on the back of your hand — just don't rely on being able to find it again while you're standing in the shop.

Give yourself longer than you think, too. It's a small shop but it's dense, and you will find at least four things you weren't looking for before you get anywhere near the thing you came in for.

Fan New Trimmings 47 Berwick Street, Soho, London W1F 8SQ Mon–Fri 10–6, Sat 11–6, closed Sunday

I'm back in September. The feather count is written down this time.