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Indie Focus
Hive Of
Activity
A giraffe named Deborah blasts out of an exterior wall, high above a pair of Instagram-ready angel wings. There is no missing The Bean Hive, a wonderfully quirky shop that has been injecting colour and personality into Kettering’s retail scene for the past three years. Hot on the heels of its wins in The Greats 2021, Muddy Stilettos and Kettering Business awards programmes (as well as reaching the finals of The Retas 2021), PG caught up with the shop’s equally colourful owner Davina ‘Queen Bean’ Parkhouse. It’s been quite a year for Davina Parkhouse (who prefers to be known as Bean). Not only did The Bean Hive - founded in 2018 by a group of friends and traders - win the Best Newcomer - South and Wales category in The Greats gift awards in September, the store also won the Best Gift Shop category in the Northamptonshire Muddy Stilettos Awards, as well as the Best Gift Shop category in the local Kettering Business
Awards. And the shop was also shortlisted as a finalist at The Retas 2021 greeting card retailer awards, all of which shouts out that the shop has got its finger on the pulse of retail. From the moment you walk in, it’s clear that this is no ordinary shop. “It’s a bit crazy!” admits Bean of her three storey retailing emporium. On the store’s first two levels - in addition to Bean’s ‘something different’
curated selection of greeting cards, gifts, home, interiors, food, beauty sections - the remaining space is rented out to 12 handpicked traders-cum-staff-cum friends, selling everything from crystals and wall art to bags, jewellery and vinyl, as well as (additional) greeting cards from two local illustrators, plus much, much more besides. There’s also the Sweary Mary’s ‘department’ on the upper floor for those shoppers looking for novelty ‘rude’ cards and gifts. Greeting cards are sold throughout the store from a myriad of publishers, with Rifle Paper, East End Prints, Eleanor Bowmar, Petra Boase being among the favourite nonhumour brands, while Bold & Bright, Objectables and Quite Good Cards are among those tickling the funny bones of Bean Hive’s customers.
Above: Deborah The Zebra was specially created to celebrate the shop’s third anniversary. Left: Davina Parkhouse aka Bean with the angel wings which are painted on the outside of the shop. Inset: The Bean Hive in Kettering.
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
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