I recently went to an evening event at the Museum of Brands 🍌, and if you are nearby, definitely go and visit it really is a fun experience.  It’s in Notting Hill, Ladbroke Grove to be exact, and it is a real delight 😍.

The idea is very simple – displaying consumer products in chronological order, to show how packaging 🍫, branding 💯 and advertising 💟 has changed over the years. It is rather wonderful to see Rolo and Aero chocolate packets 🍫 from the 1930s, a multitude of quite bizarre cigarette advertising 🚬, the austere branding during the war years 📻, and fizzy drink cans 🍱 for which you needed a special implement to open, before the ring pull was invented.

There is also a time tunnel (not a roller coaster type affair 🎡, I was hopeful) but just a winding corridor filled with different innovations – starting with the 1910s and ending with today (there is a whole case devoted to One Direction 🎤).

My favourite discovery was that up until the 1940s, when writing a postcard 💌, your message had to be on the same side as the image.  The back was purely reserved for the address.

And maybe the most fun part is discovering brands you know very well that have been around for years.  Some have changed dramatically – tooth paste 🛀 used to come in round china pots (similar to the size of Gentleman’s relish) – others are almost exactly the same – Lyle’s Golden Syrup 🍮, has hardly changed at all.

I am fairly certain no photography was allowed – but I have included one photo of items that have had their names changed as it rather appealed to me – I remember both Opal Fruit to Starburst 🍋, and Oil of Ulay to Olay 🍶.

Do go have a look!

Alice xxx