It’s hard to explain what it is like to nurture a small business. At its most exciting it is like nurturing evolution – finding new things and ideas, looking at what has worked well and deciding what direction to try next, what to keep and what to update. This season’s buying began in the Autumn looking at our main suppliers’ new collections. There is a really nice trend towards the organic – like a revival of the Arts and Crafts movement, many designers are celebrating the materials and craftsmanship with which products are made. Ceramics have reactive glazes on them: these are glazes which produce reactions within the heat of the kiln to form blooms of colour or texture, making each piece unique. Combined with organic, hand-formed shapes these glazes produce objects of beauty, objects which celebrate the imperfections of natural materials.
Similar trends can be seen in soft furnishings with rough weaves exposing unevenly dyed threads, knotting and other decorative techniques which create texture as well as pattern. Many prints and textures have indigenous art references from different cultures around the world. These patterns work well set against plain backgrounds for a paired down bohemian look.
Textured cusion from Bloomingville 
Weave detail 
Making a statement with soft furnishings 
In fact, this is how we like to deal with pattern and colour generally. We’re endlessly interested in the history and evolution of decorative arts. Design is like a conversation with the past to me. One of our new suppliers, Sukie, is a perfect example of this. Darrell and Julie who founded and run Sukie are great collectors of stationery and print, and items they produce themselves reference but develop on things from their collection. We’ve chosen patterns based on old botanical reference books but the colour palette, scale and repetition of pattern has been given a modern twist.
A playful “conversation with the past†can also be seen in Hannah Turner’s illustrations for her ceramics range. Her universe is populated with animals and creatures which could have come from the mid 20th century golden age of illustration, often made three dimensional in ceramic. These playful pieces are great mixed with “serious†antiques and collectables or modern geometric pieces for a juxtaposition of styles designed to make you smile. Hannah has sent us her knew Cat range for this Spring, but alongside these friendly faces we’ve still got a nod to the wonderful and exotic with the creatures in And Mary’s ceramic jewellery collection.
We’re also super excited to have taken on Double 00 wallets for this season. I discovered these at a show over a year ago and have been in love with mine ever since and we’ve now found space for them in our collection. What we love about them is the simplicity of design combined with the combination of colour. The simplification of design to perform one function extremely well is, for me, one of the holy grails of the modern age. When forms are paired down and combined the end results are both beautiful and treasured. These wallets are no exception. Made in Spain from quality leather, these simple card wallets and money clips hold everything you need, easy to access and with a range of colours to make them an individual statement. The strong and simple block and contrasting colour of these wallets gives them what might be considered a masculine design ethic, although we think they’re pretty good for men and women alike.
We’ve always been drawn to a strong use of colour, even if we often like it calmed down with neutral backgrounds so the colour can really pop out at you. Beck Sondergaard accessories are the perfect example of this, and this summer’s colour ranges are no exception. Warm oranges and pinks contrast with soft greens in this season’s palette, although there are pops of exotic colours.
We may have been building this season’s collection since the Autumn but we’re super excited to be getting all our favourite finds into stock now, displaying them in the shop and getting them up our website. As in real life the changing of the seasons never really stops for us – we find new stock all the time and it comes in as we move old things on to happy customers. However, we’re taking a pause to stop and celebrate the achievements of the last year on
21st March 2019, 6-9pm with our Spring / Summer launch night
where we’ll be looking forward to sharing our favourite new items with you along with a glass of wine. Drop us an email if you’d like to attend to book your place.