Idea bookshop’s Angela Hill on fashionable literary merch, from Dua Lipa’s ‘Winona’ cap to ‘Keanu’ and ‘I don’t work here’ tees

Nov 23 , 2024

Kaia Gerber is just one A-lister helping make literary merch from the likes of London bookshop Idea fashionable, from Dua Lipa’s ‘Winona’ cap to “Keanu” and “I don’t work here” tees. Photo: @kaiagerber/Instagram

Tote bags from London’s Daunt Books or New York’s The Strand, The New Yorker, Shakespeare and Co or The Paris Review bookshops were the original lit merch, but Idea raised the bar

We’ve always told stories about ourselves with what we wear. In the 1700s, blue wool stockings were donned by the – yep – Blue Stockings Society, a cohort of elite Georgian women who met to discuss literature, politics and philosophy – discussions men deemed too serious for the fairer sex to contemplate. Blue stockings, seen as less formal than black or white silk stockings, were symbolic of the group’s eschewal of high society norms.

In the 1850s, women’s rights reformist Amelia Bloomer launched the voluminous trousers we now call bloomers to push back against restrictive Victorian garments. Then there was the mighty polo neck, a still-beloved article of clothing popularised by anti-establishment French intellectuals in the early 1900s.

Dua Lipa in a Winona hat. Photo: @BestofWinona/Instagram

More recent, and more obvious, examples include band tees – famously contentious if you aren’t a dyed-in-the-wool fan – Palestinian keffiyehs, and friendship bracelets traded at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concerts . It’s a tale as old as time: we love being part of clubs and causes, and we want people to know it.

A whole other category, which has quietly proliferated across the globe, is literary merch. Or perhaps not so quietly, if you, like me, live in London and would do nicely if every Daunt Books tote sighting put a penny in your pocket. In New York, replace Daunt (the famously charming wood-lined bookstore chain) with The Strand, The New Yorker, Shakespeare & Co or The Paris Review, and you get the picture. Stylistically, blue stockings, bloomers and polo necks can be unforgiving, while totes can be hauled around any time, anywhere.

Camila Cabello in a The Paris Review Hat. Photo: @donetodeath/Instagram

It’s not just totes, however, that people are buying into. Just ask Angela Hill, fashion photographer and co-founder of Idea, London’s painfully cool rare bookshop and vendor of some of fashion’s favourite lit merch. Dua Lipa was recently seen in one of Idea’s caps, emblazoned simply with Winona, all caps, in a white serif font, joining a long line of A-listers (Kim Kardashian, Justin Bieber et al) to sport the business’ non-book wares, which include hats, T-shirts and yes, totes.

It all started in 2015, when Hill wanted to put something on 20 T-shirts for the launch of Idea’s Dover Street Market outpost.

London-based Angela Hill and David Owen are the founders of Idea Books. Photo: Handout

“I thought about people who are recognisable by one name, who will always be icons. Like Elvis, Prince,” says Hill, surrounded by bookshelves in a head-to-toe Miu Miu get-up (she has one for every day of the week). “But I’ve always loved how Winona [Ryder] looks and behaves, and the films that she chooses to be in.” Idea is also behind the currently sold-out The Winona Book, a photo anthology with a foreword by Marc Jacobs.