holiday gift guide!

Welcome to clipboard, a weekly newsletter about clothes, hospitality and Tāmaki Makaurau, by Reilly Hodson. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram (where you can also find the fledgling clipboard moodboard), and send me an email, too. This week, a locals-only gift guide.

This week, it will pass the point of one month until Christmas. That means, if you haven’t already, it’s time to get on to your gift shopping. This year, more than most, it is important to do that shopping locally. Not just because it’s the morally correct thing to do in a recession with the borders closed, but also because there is no way you can count on anything you order from overseas showing up on anything close to a reasonable timeline (I’m still waiting on a Uniqlo order from February).

If all of that stresses you out, you’ve come to the right place. Here are some recommendations for gifts you can buy for almost any person in your life, and good shops to go to without blowing the budget, and keeping your money in the country.

go-to stores

Some stores are so good that you don’t need to know what you’re exactly looking for, you can just go in and find something that’ll be a great gift. These are my favourites.

Everyday Needs, Ponsonby Rd: I do the vast majority of my gift buying at Everyday Needs. Curated homewares from local makers, crafts from Japan, everything at Everyday Needs is just nice. Great place to shop for mums, and anyone who posts interior shots of their flat on Instagram with no caption. Great gifts I’ve purchased and received from EDN include this toolbox for your home office, this tote bag, and these bookends.

Time Out Books, Mt Eden Rd: What gift buying can’t be covered at Everyday Needs can often be covered by a good book. You can buy books online, sure, but it’s nothing like shopping at a good independent bookstore. Time Out is one of the best (though the Women’s Bookshop and Unity are both great options if they’re closer to you), and has brilliant staff who can recommend books for any reader in your life. A couple of recommendations from me: The Biggest Bluff by Maria Konnikova, for that person who loves saying “I’ve been reading this really interesting book…” at dinner parties; Trust Exercise by Susan Choi for anyone who has unresolved issues from their time as a theatre kid; and Outline by Rachel Cusk for someone who is a bit stressed and just needs a relaxing, low stakes read, but you’ll find something brilliant just by asking, too.

Checks Downtown, Pitt St: One of New Zealand’s best local labels, Checks probably has the perfect gift for the budding jawnz enthusiast (clothes fan) in your life. They make great freaky statement pieces to spice up your wardrobe, like these pants, this graphic tee, or this brilliant jacket, a favourite of style icon Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick.

Paradise Press, online: A great way to buy lovely art for a reasonable price and support the Kindness Institute, as well as the artists. Paradise Press does limited run prints that you can buy framed or unframed, and 25% of the proceeds go to supporting the mental wellbeing of marginalised rangatahi through the Kindness Institute. Great for the budding art collector in your life.

Jiho Store, online: Jiho Yun is, for her day job, an excellent stylist whose work has appeared in excellent magazines like HERE (see below). Her side hustle is a tightly curated online store, which stocks not only the best socks you can buy, but also lovely postcards which are worthy of a spot on the wall, and these head turning spherical candles. She’s doing a pop up at Penny Sage next weekend alongside Walk in the Park and Klay, and you could probably tick off a good portion of your list in a day at that.

Layplan, online: Layplan is a breakout label of the season. Beautiful dresses and tops, made in limited runs which means you get something almost unique. Made locally, size inclusive, what’s not to like? My girlfriend has her eye on the Baby Lucia.

Your local vintage store/op shop: You never know what you’ll find at a good op shop, and shopping there is a triple win of supporting local businesses, saving money and being an extremely sustainable shopper who isn’t responsible for the creation of anything new. My local Flotsam and Jetsam in Ponsonby is not as cheap as a good Salvation Army, but the selection is great for anyone who likes having nice things in their home.

and now, an intermission for good links and other good stuff from this week!

clips

• Clay on K Road are hosting red-hot burger masters Baby G Burgers tonight. I don’t eat cheese and Baby G don’t do adjustments to their cheeseburgers so I’ve never tried them, but they sell out everywhere they go, so along with Clay’s excellent wine list, it’s a no brainer.

• Wine and pasta bar Pici opened in the spot that used to be Fort Greene in St Kevin’s Arcade on Friday. It looks great, I’ve been hoping for a good, simple fresh pasta and wine spot in the central city for a while, and this certainly looks like that.

• Twin Good Profiles in the Spinoff about smash hit pop sensation Benee and her producer Josh Fountain, both good reads about coming into extraordinary success in 2020. Benee spending that TikTok money on a Grey Lynn house was an excellent financial decision.

• An excellent read about George Clooney, a rare good white hetero male celebrity (as far as I know, please tell me if he’s been secretly cancelled and I will rescind my statement).

• A great breakdown of ambient TV, content which just is.

• Auckland’s coolest boutique in the middle of nowhere, Platform, has the new Awake NY collection exclusively in New Zealand. I love this jacket and this cardigan (pearl buttons!). If you’re heading in store, Mitchell Tan’s Rubbish Bin pop up continues there until the 27th, too.

• I’m very intrigued by Ada, an Italian-ish joint in the new Convent hotel on Great North Road in Grey Lynn, run by some chefs fresh off the line at Cotto, purveyors of maybe the best pasta in town.

• A buck wild story about TikTok creator mansions being owned by a Chinese healthcare company, a sentence which made no sentence to me, either.

gift subscriptions

If you struggle with choosing just one thing to buy for your loved ones, a subscription is a great option. People love getting new stuff, and a subscription will keep the gift going all year long. Obviously I ride hard for local media subscriptions, but there are also non-media subscriptions that you can get locally that will please any hard-to-buy-for person in your life.

North & South Magazine: New Zealand’s prestige magazine returned with a bang this week, with an excellent issue packed with beautiful photography, thoughtful essays and longform journalism about all of New Zealand, not just the main centres. I’ll confess that I was not a regular reader before Bauer folded, but this new issue convinced me to sign up for a year. Buy it for your anyone in your life that prides themselves on being extremely informed and having nuanced opinions.

Metro Magazine: Metro has been my favourite magazine in the world for years, and it’s imminently returning, with dream team Henry Oliver and Jean Teng running editorial. It’s now a juicy, big quarterly mag, slammed full of great stuff about this brilliant city written by some of the smartest people. I can’t wait for the first issue back to drop this Thursday, and not only because I wrote something in it. I subscribed the day the link dropped, and you should too.

Here Magazine: HERE is another phoenix rising from the ashes of the Bauer closure. It’s an excellent home and interiors mag, and as an added bonus makes your coffee table look much nicer, too. Buy it for the person in your life who is always redoing their interiors, or posting inspo to Instagram.

Mug Mates: After a long hiatus, Mug Mates is returning at the end of the year. Whoever you give this to will get four mugs from local ceramics artists, once a month for four months. Pre orders open tonight, so you can tick this gift off right away.

6 Bottles: The minds behind the excellent wine list at Celeste and East St. Hall have a wine subscription through their soon-to-be-opened wine shop Star Superette, called 6 bottles. As the name suggests, you get 6 bottles of delicious natural wine a month, along with some cool perks, and maybe merch, which we all know I love. Buy it for the natural wine snob in your life, they’ll be stoked.

Beer Hug: My dad LOVES his Beer Hug subscription, so much that he sold it to my partner’s dad, so whenever we have dinner at either parents’ place there is delicious craft beer. Beer Hug sends you the full range of a different craft brewery every month. Sours, Hazy IPAs, double hopped whatsits, you’ll get it all.

Coffee Supreme: Coffee Supreme roasts some of the best coffee in the country, and you can subscribe to get a bag regularly, so if anyone in your life loves to brew their coffee at home, this is a slam dunk.

Thanks for reading this week’s gift guide special of clipboard! I hope you found something to buy for a loved one, or even yourself (you deserve it, this year has sucked). Happy holidays, I’ll see you right here next week. As always, follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and send me an email with questions, suggestions or offers of work.