Welcome to the corner store where everything is made of felt

From felt sausages and eggplants, to felt gummy bears and soft drinks, artist Lucy Sparrow has painstakingly recreated all your favourite grocery items.

Artist Lucy Sparrow and model Helena Christensen pose in The Convenience Store, where everything is made of felt.

Artist Lucy Sparrow and model Helena Christensen pose in The Convenience Store, where everything is made of felt. Source: Instagram/HelenaChristensen

At first glance it looks like any other convenience store, the shelves stacked with bags of chips, bottles of tomato ketchup, tins of Spam, packets of Band-Aids and tubs of ice cream.

But step inside and you'll quickly see that every item in this New York store - all 9000 of them - are made from felt as part of an art installation called '8 Till Late'.
British artist Lucy Sparrow spent six months researching and then hand-stitching felt fittings, freezers, fixtures, and products as a comment on the demise of the neighbourhood corner store in the modern world.
"I want the work to make people think about the loss of community spaces when these small corner shops disappear; to remind them how valuable these corner shops really are and the colour they bring to our lives," Sparrow says.

Customers who visit the store can buy fuzzy replicas of their favourite foods, while hungry office workers nearby the Standard High Line in New York's Meatpacking District can order bespoke fabric sandwiches with fillings such as pastrami, salt beef  and pickles at the deli counter.
Outside the store a hot dog stand is set up and customers can help themselves to a squeeze of complimentary glitter glue mustard and ketchup. 

The store has quickly become an Instragrammable hit, with high profile fans including Danish model who called the supermarket "brilliant".
It is Sparrow's first US exhibition, having previously opened a fully stocked felt Cornershop in London's East End in 2014, and a entire sex shop out of felt in London's Soho in 2015.

Last year the BBC commissioned her to recreate the Crown Jewels in felt to celebrate the Queen's 90th birthday.

'8 Till Late' opened on June 5 and will close at the end of June. But if you can't make it to Sparrow's convenience store in person, items are available for purchase on her website .



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2 min read
Published 16 June 2017 10:50am
Updated 16 June 2017 10:56am
By Alyssa Braithwaite


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