If restrained good taste is what you're after, then Pad is definitely not for you. It's a tiny, new shop on Dublin's Stephen Street Lower that specialises in kitschy home accessories - think inflatable flamingos and lurid pink Mexican baskets and you get the idea. "I hit on Pad as a name because I like its swinging, spaceage, bachelor pad connotations," says William Walsh, the shop's 30-year-old owner. Indeed, there does seem to be a great number of drink-related items on the shelves - in a cool, retro kind of way of course. There are glittery, pink martini glasses, £7.99, with matching cocktail shakers, £14.99, giraffe-shaped swizzle sticks, 25p, and cufflinks that say "shaken" on one side, "stirred" on the other.
Walsh, a one-time musician and DJ, learned about retail in London where for seven years he had stalls selling vintage clothing at Camden and Portobello markets. When he came home to Dublin three years ago he opened Wild Child, a vintage clothing shop on South Great George's Street and followed that with a Galway branch last year. "I started selling funky home accessories in Wild Child at Christmas and they sold really well so I decided to take the plunge and open a specialist shop," he says. Like a true, urban thirtysomething, he had also grown more interested in the whole interiors area and found that despite the huge increase in interiors shops in the capital, none was catering for his kitsch retro tastes. As well as the fun stuff, he does stock more expensive, less throwaway items in the shop, such as a German range of brightly coloured tableware made from recycled plastic and an Italian designer trolley in orange laminate for £259 with matching bistro table, £295.
However, at 150 square foot, there isn't room in the shop for many bigger items. "For a shop like this to work, the stock has to change almost every week and it's important that I don't buy too many of any one item," Walsh says. "After all, if you buy a tartan-patterned wall clock you don't want to see one in in every house you visit."
As for the shop being slightly off the beaten track, Walsh is firmly convinced that Lower Stephen Street is experiencing a street-cred revival. His sister, style guru and jewellery maker Vivien Walsh, has moved from the Powercourt Centre to a shop just a few doors down from PAD and the nearby George's Street Arcade is bustling with new stalls and shops. "This area is going to be the next Temple Bar," Walsh predicts. "The big difference is that while only tourists will shop down there, Dubliners will be moseying around all the new shops that are springing up around here."
Pad is at 20 Lower Stephen Street, Dublin 2