Tokyo is the place for all your strange pencils

Royal College of Art professor Nigel Coates is clearly a man who won’t accept second best.

In a recent profile in the Financial Times Coates confides that he likes to buy his cosmetics in New York, his clothes and shoes in Florence and his flowers in London.

But where to go for bits and bobs? ‘For knick-knacks and funny gadgets and strange pencils, Tokyu Hands in Tokyo has a spread of things you wouldn’t find elsewhere,’ says Coates.