London 2012 Olympics: Anyone for an Olympic radiator?… or gold paper sick bags, £400 discus-inspired teapots and GB lucky pants?

A snip at just under £5,000 (sold as individual rings for around £1,000). Retailers have become increasingly inventive to get round rigorous Olympic trading laws. Katie Law reports
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23 July 2012

As John Lewis reports a rise of 103 per cent in sales of its 46in-plus televisions since February and M&S is currently flogging its Union Jack-design 22in TVs half price at £99 (it reports sales up this week by 400 per cent), retailers are seizing on the Olympics as their last opportunity of the year to jump aboard the “Proud to be British” Jubilee bandwagon.

And yet the Olympics story is different, if only because of the severe restrictions placed on retailers. This week nearly 300 Olympic enforcement officers will begin ensuring traders are not illegally associating themselves with the Games.

Only officially approved retailers have been allowed to sell officially approved merchandise, most of which is based on the by now overly familiar images — from the bizarrely cyclopic Wenlock mascot and jagged Team GB logo to those five interlinking hoops, rather than the classier design opportunities provided by the royal family, their crowns, carriages and corgis.

It turns out that the biggest authorised bestseller so far has been a 20cm die-cast metal replica of Barber Osgerby’s prize-winning torch. The repro mini torch from John Lewis has been a runaway success at branches wherever the real torch has passed by. It’s people-pleasingly cheap at just under a tenner but based on a good design.

The second bestseller, believe it or not, is a scary-looking £4.99 plush taupe and orange Wenlock keyring, followed closely by Team GB paper fans and sports and stadium-themed versions of Monopoly. But will anyone really want to bid on the Aquatics Centre once the Games are over?

Then there’s Nick Munro’s über-designed Olympic silver and gold-plated tea service in a limited edition of 200, which according to the press office is still available although at the time of writing is listed on John Lewis’s website as out of stock. The discus-inspired teapot alone costs £400, teaspoons a more modest £20.

These items are just the tip of the authorised iceberg. John Lewis sells more than 6,000 different products in its Stratford store alone.

Then there’s all the unauthorised stuff, which isn’t necessarily any more attractive. Dwell’s red fibreglass 53cm-high Olympian statue for £199 is a good case in point. According to the sales blurb, “the lustrous red finish reflects the light, emphasising the muscular definition and physical beauty of this outstanding statement piece”, although some might say it would work better as a novelty scarecrow in the garden.

British radiator company Bisque has also hopped onto the Olympic bandwagon with its hot hoops, designed by Paul Priestman. These circular radiators are available in 2,000 colours, including a certain shade of yellow, red, blue, green and black. They cost just under £1,000 each so a set would set you back a whopping £5,000. However, five on a wall would be impractical, I was told, as they are too big and would give out too much heat, though it hasn’t stopped them releasing a photograph of what they’d look like as the Olympic rings.

“We’re not saying these are Olympic products. We can’t say they are, as they would get us for infringement, and no one has bought the whole ensemble, only the individual colours. We’ve sold about 15-20 so far. It’s more about getting on board with being the best of British,” says Bisque’s press officer Henry Griffiths.

At the thriftier end of the scale there are some genuinely wacky, charming things such as Twisted Twee’s GB Lucky Pants, Knitlympics, a book of patterns for knitting your own gymnast, packs of Victorious Cake Pop Tops: pop-up paper athletes, flags and trophies for cakes, and — my own personal favourite — Lydia Leith’s paper sick bags, in gold, silver and bronze. I’d like a dozen in gold, please.

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