Selfridges' Poundshop is full of chic As Selfridges' Bright Young Things scheme returns for a third year, Ellie Pithers meets the people behind Poundshop, a collective bringing good design to bargain-hunters. Pound shops traditionally trade in multi-packs of chewing gum and tacky garden gnomes, but this Poundshop is no ordinary cut-price emporium. Founded by George Wu, Sara Melin and Sarah Gottlieb - three friends who met as students at the Royal College of Art - the project comprises a pop-up shop selling well-designed products by independent designers, all originally costing £1. Yesterday they took over a window and on Monday will sell products in-store as part of Selfridges' Bright Young Things scheme, which mentors 18 emerging talents in fashion, art, animation, design and food. WATCH: Ben Eine graffiti Selfridges for Louis Vuitton The Poundshop was conceived, as most good ideas are, while drunk. 'We were at a Christmas party in 2009 and a friend who is an architect for Croydon Council mentioned that there were loads of empty shop spaces in Croydon,' Wu says. We joked about opening a design shop and selling everything for a pound. After Christmas we came back to London and decided to try it. The first Poundshop was held in April 2010 in an empty shop in Hoxton, lent by the Shoreditch Trust. Wu, Melin and Gottlieb (who studied film, illustration and graphic design respectively) publicised it on Facebook and invited friends to submit entries, made at a cost price of 50p (the Poundshop takes 10 per cent commission). The main criterion for entries is functionality. 'We wanted it to be about product rather than aesthetics,' Wu says. There were already places where you could buy cheap prints or illustrations - it had to be like a real pound shop. The mostly handmade entries came from as far as Mexico, and included chopsticks coated in bright plastic, and plasters with aphorisms written on them. To their surprise, it was a hit, with more than 500 bargain-hunters visiting in five days of trading. READ: Selfridges to launch world's first shop drive-thru The three are now two, Gottlieb having moved abroad, but Melin and Wu have since held six more pop-up-shop events, juggling them with their jobs (Melin as a teacher and part-time art director, Wu as a director for a production company and design studio). Last year they won a £5,000 grant from the east London regeneration programme High Street 2012, allowing them to develop their website. 'We get better-quality submissions these days,' Wu says, 'but in terms of how much you can actually do for 50 pence, it has changed a lot.' Pieces on-sale at the Selfridges pop-up store: plastic animal place-setting nameholders by Purplespoon Design, £1 each; tea light holder by David Bennett, £1; acetate beetle tie-pins by Cat Johnston, £5. Photo: Poundshop Their Selfridges offerings, on sale until October 23 online and in the London store, will therefore be sold in £1, £5 and £10 brackets to account for inflation and to ensure that designers can make more than 40p profit per item. (Wu is keen to stress that the Poundshop is not about making money. 'We provide a promotional platform for designers,' she says, 'so that hopefully bigger retailers will take them on.') Products will include ceramic coasters that look like pieces of toast made by the illustrator Charlotte Mei , and bird-shaped plywood doorstops by the London-based design house Espergaerde; plastic animal place-setting nameholders by Purplespoon Design, a Cambridge-based graphic-design studio; colourful screen-printed plywood clipboards by Ding Ding in Nottingham for £1; and acetate beetle tie-pins by the London-based illustrator and prop-maker Cat Johnston at £5. They will also include their bestselling product ever, courtesy of Wu's mother. My mum knits these little animal heads and they always sell out. She can make a little knitted owl in half an hour,' Wu says. 'She's knitting bee and ladybird fridge magnets for Selfridges.' thepoundshop.org