Anti-Kitsch Valentine's Gifts for People Who Hate Red Hearts

The standard Valentine's shop assumes everyone wants roses, a padded card and something in a heart shape. For a lot of couples that is not affection, it is an obligation with a colour scheme.

What follows is sincere without being sweet, which is a harder combination to buy than it should be.

The one that is an actual date

Cheesy Romance shows two pigeons sharing pizza in Central Park, with a candle, donuts and a heart-shaped sign. It is unmistakably a love painting and it contains no roses whatsoever. The joke is affectionate rather than mocking, which matters when you are giving it to someone you actually like.

The one about wanting things

Indulgence and Decay is about appetite: a pigeon, a hand reaching in with a strawberry, a champagne glass and a skull. Love and hunger and the fact that neither lasts, all in one square.

The one that is slightly filthy

Tongue and Strawberry is exactly as suggestive as it sounds and still perfectly hangable in a hallway. There is a t-shirt version too.

For a shared flat

If you live together, buying art for the wall you both look at is a better Valentine's present than another object that belongs to one person. Inside the Candy Decay Apartment is a room full of the small evidence of a life, which is roughly what living with someone is.

For long distance

The Collector's Club as a gift sends something to their letterbox every month, which beats one delivery in February. Real post is disproportionately effective when you cannot be in the same room.

Left it to the 13th

Downloads are 9,90 euro and arrive immediately. Print it, put it in a frame from the shop on the corner, and it still looks like you planned it.