Studio Ghibli’s official travelling gift shop, Maison Ghibli, is coming back to London next weekend. Last winter it set up camp at 237 Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, where the locals are Harrods and people who buy racehorses as stocking fillers. This year it has moved somewhere marginally more democratic: 36 Eastcastle Street, London W1W 8DP, a short stroll from Oxford Circus. Doors open on Saturday 7 November 2026, and the shop stays put until Sunday 10 January 2027, after which it presumably folds itself up and clanks off across the moors like Howl’s castle.
The organisers promise more than 1,000 officially licensed products, mixing imports from Japan with European designs. Expect plush toys, collector figures, puzzles, model kits, stationery, mugs and Japanese tableware. Returning favourites include Heen and Calcifer plush toys from Howl’s Moving Castle, a No-Face cushion and Totoro teacups. A plush Calcifer is, let’s be honest, the only fire demon you can safely take to bed. The No-Face cushion is unlikely to eat any of the staff, though it may follow you silently to the till.
Inside, the shop gets a forest-themed makeover and a Totoro photo spot. So at some point in the next ten weeks, a grown man in a Barbour jacket will be photographed grinning beside a giant grey forest spirit and will insist it’s for his niece. Here at SFcrowsnest magazine, we see you, and we do not judge.
Opening hours are 11am to 7.30pm Monday to Friday, 10am to 8pm on Saturdays and 11am to 6pm on Sundays. Christmas is the usual obstacle course: the shop is listed as closed on 24, 25 and 28 December and on 1 January, and open from 11am to 4pm on New Year’s Eve. Hours can change, so it’s worth checking Maison Ghibli UK’s Instagram before you set off.
A word on queues. The organisers say queues formed at last year’s Knightsbridge shop, and that was without the extra handicap of Oxford Street in November. The West End at Christmas is its own Sea of Corruption, full of vast, slow-moving creatures with shopping bags whose eyes turn red the moment you get in their way. A weekday visit is likely to be kinder on the nerves than opening weekend. Nobody has yet confirmed whether entry this year is free or needs booking. Last year’s pop-up was free to walk into, but don’t assume the same rules apply until Maison Ghibli says so.
Prices haven’t been published either, and imported Japanese goods rarely reach Britain cheaply, so anyone who has haggled their way round Nakano Broadway may wince at a label or two. Paris, meanwhile, has had its own Maison Ghibli on the rue des Halles since 17 October. The French got theirs three weeks early, naturally, but at least ours runs a week longer.
It isn’t the indoor Toxic Jungle that Ghibli Park is planning in Aichi, and there’s still no sign of the full-size Tiger Moth we keep asking for. But it’s a short ride on the Central line rather than twelve hours to Nagoya, and the Totoro teacups won’t need a visa. More details are at maison-ghibli.com. Bring a sturdy bag, and leave No-Face’s gold at home; the till will want real money.
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