Ahead of IDEA’s opening early next year, co-directors Angela Hill and David Owen talk about their famous clientele, and building up a cult following outside of Instagram
“We don’t just collect books, we’re avid collectors of people”, Angela Hill, co-director of IDEA, rare book dealers and publishers, explains to me in the appointment-only ‘secret book room’ in Soho. “Film directors, fashion people, DJs, New York investment bankers and Brazilian playboys,” she goes on. “We’ve had clients so famous they send their security over to sweep the place before they arrive.” She concludes, “Customers are my favourite thing – from the most famous celebs to students with two ha’pennies to rub together.” “We get a lot from the people we meet,” agrees her partner, co-director David Owen. Sometimes, visitors are not only famous but feature in many of the books – David has been known to hide excessive covers of stars like Chloë Sevigny before she arrives. Angela, too, was fearful of seeming like Alan Partridge’s stalker with a house full of Alan memorabilia and matching giant tattoo.
According to Owen, they’ve even bonded with online customers. Fans DM to purchase books from the wildly popular Instagram, then email back and forth, forming friendships. It seems like the pair have always been skilled at making connections. Their pre-IDEA careers were in TV, music and digital (Owen) and fashion and portrait photography, shooting for titles such as Purple and The Gentlewoman (Hill), while their cache of inspiring rare coffee table books and magazines was purely personal. Founder of the now-closed, cult Paris boutique, Colette, Sarah Andelmen, wanted the collection to sell, so they curated a stand for her.
In 2009, the pair successfully attempted retail with a gleaming, futuristic pop-up shop in St Martins Lane Hotel. “I can’t stand dusty, filthy second-hand bookshops. Everything in ours was white and clean and smelled nice” Hill explains, with shelving by [ultra-chic industrial designer] Vitsœ.
After launching on Instagram in 2011, things really took off. They built a following of 500k – despite being deleted for featuring too many nipples – which functions as a global clientele for their rare books, magazines and ephemera; with everything from a tarot deck designed by and featuring Salvador Dalí to a menu from Concorde.
Hill and Owen are partners as well as business partners, and parents of two teenage children. Their daughter coined the name IDEA – their initials; Iris, David, Edith and Angela. They present as incredibly in sync, not only finishing each other’s sentences but seamlessly tag-teaming their way through anecdotes.
I intend to ask about their plans to expand their one-room, appointment-only reading area into a much bigger, customer-facing bookshop, but we keep getting side-tracked with fabulous name-dropping tales, like the time Calvin Klein came to the book room. “He was great, such a sweet man,” Angela begins. David picks up, “Lovely guy. Absolutely no ego. Angela – tell her which book he wanted,” to which Angela replies, “He asked me if I had any books about minimalism”. David giggles expectantly. Angela: “I said ‘minimalism? You ARE minimalism!’” upon which they both fall about laughing.
As well as fashion books, they’ve also had success with esoteric glimpses into visual culture. For example: a 1960s book on Ikebana, published two generations before the Japanese philosophy of flower arranging became an Instagram phenomenon.
Fashion design teams – up to ten people at a time – routinely descend on the book room. Hill and Owen convey how dreadfully gauche it would be to try and sell them books about clothes. “They want film, interiors, architecture, anything but fashion.” Hill tells me. “If you work for Versace or Celine, you don’t want to use the same references as everyone else and you want privacy.” An exception is a treasure discovered by the pair – Paula’s Ibiza – that they heard was on everyone’s moodboard one season.
Since 2014, they’ve also run a publishing imprint. Its first book was Crimea/Kids by Gosha Rubchinskiy, which sold out in three days. Since then, they’ve published dozens of titles, including Dave Swindells’ Acid House As It Happened, a volume about streetwear label Palace, and legendary hairstylist Guido Palau’s unseen Hair Tests. The subjects of the books reflect the pair’s eclectic taste and top-tier network of fashion and cultural contacts. The new books are almost as niche and rare as the vintage ones, due to limited print runs.
They also have a line of extremely tempting merch – witty slogan tees and caps saying, “Sorry I don’t work here”, “All England Techno Club” and other jokes. When the pair’s new shop opens next year at 101 Wardour Street, customers can browse it all in person, along with the books.
The imprint achieved notoriety for its titles’ propensity to sell out. They’re often all gone within a few days, only to appear changing hands on eBay for ten times their original price. The couple feel “great” about the inflated reselling. “We love it,” says Angela. “I actually think [resellers] were very clever to buy it at first, or buy extra copies to sell on.” David agrees, “We really like things to be exclusive, limited edition and [to] sell out”. And they aren’t worried about running ideas for new editions? Angela replies first: “No.” Then David continues, “No, no” and they both chorus, “No, no – NO!”
IDEA’s new bookstore will open in early 2024 in Soho, London. Visit the website here.
