A Few Things I'm Loving This Week (& a Couple of Things I'm Sad About)…

Having worked in retail for so many years, I've found this last week very sad indeed, and none more so than the news about Designers Guild. The brand has closed, along with its store on the King's Road, which had been there for 56 years. Sandwiched between Designers Guild's two stores was the infamous Stockpot, where I had my first job, earning £1 an hour… It was one of the oldest restaurants on the King's Road, known for big plates of cheap, hearty food: stews, pasta, crumble and custard. Prices stayed at student level on one of London's most expensive streets. With Tricia at the helm, Designers Guild became a global brand, championing bold colour and pattern through decades of beige. The shop was a showcase for real talent, often highlighting interesting makers and designers.

Another very sad closure this week: Not Another Bill. It began as a gift subscription, a surprise parcel each month with a design-led object from an independent maker, so the post brought something lovely instead of another bill. The design press adored it, including Wallpaper*, Dezeen and Fast Company. It soon moved into personalised gifts, and I for one used it every Christmas for the family stockings. The Emergency Sugar Rush tin was a winner with my son during the 'believer' years.
Writing about Tricia and Designers Guild has made me a wee bit nostalgic for my years growing up and working in London. The nostalgia has been fuelled by a new Instagram account I've started following, @matchboxmemories. It's full of restaurants, bars and clubs we went to in the nineties and noughties.
Some of them I worked on while I was at the Conran Shop, doing their interiors and accessories: Quaglino's, Sartoria, The Orrery, Pont de la Tour & Mezzo. Then there are the restaurants Cass worked at. Daphne's was his first London job, and he went on to open The Collection and Pasha for the restaurateur Mogens Tholstrup.  And of course there was Tricia's lovely husband, Richard Polo, who owned Joe Allen's, Orso and Orsino, all of which I often visited with my family.
Wedgwood has teamed up with Jonathan Anderson of JW Anderson on a limited collection of mugs that I love, pure simplicity and the colour palette is wonderful. They're sold in pairs, one ribbed and one turned, in Wedgwood's famous Jasper stoneware and handmade at the Barlaston factory in Stoke. The shapes come from 5th-century Greek mugs in Anderson's own collection and from previously unmade designs by the potter Lucie Rie. Proceeds go to the new Lucie Rie and Hans Coper Foundation. The colour pairings are gorgeous: Saxon blue with pale Wedgwood blue, canary with mimosa, and black with chocolate. A second volume adds mercury blue with jasper blue, dark brown with terracotta, and marsh green with sage. They're not cheap (totally out of my price range!) at around £300 a pair, but each set arrives gift-boxed with a letter from Anderson himself.As many of you know, about 18 months ago I downsized my lovely shop into our restaurant space. On the one hand I'm so much happier: I get to work alongside Cass and my gorgeous stepdaughter, Tabatha, every day, and there are no more long, lonely days in the shop on my own.  But homewares and interiors have been my absolute passion ever since I studied History of Design at Manchester. I began my career with my hero, Terence Conran, who was also the subject of my dissertation. So having such a small space to show my ideas and buying has been hard.
It's not just the state of the UK economy, either. The high street has so much buying power, and it's churning out fantastic pieces season after season. H&M Home, Zara Home, Mango, La Redoute and Marks & Spencer are all doing a fine job, at prices I could only wish for at wholesale! That's just how it is… perhaps I should go back to consulting, creating themes and mood boards for the high street retailers! Anyway here are my top picks for for the week, highlights being the Maposié x La Redoute and Swedish designer Lina Schnaufer's prints for Ikea.
Links for the above products:
Mapoésie Cushion for La Redoute
Rattan desk from Ikea
Stainless Steel Utensils from Mango
Glass Bedside Carafe & Glass from Mango
Patterned Bedding from Ikea
100% Linen Embroidered Napkins from Zara Home

If I weren't running Brassica Restaurant, Mercantile, Forno and Handmade Meals with Cass, not to mention a very lengthy school run, I think I'd love to go on a proper, in-depth pottery course and see whether I had it in me to make something wonderful for the table.
Florian Gadsby is a London potter known for simple, sharp-edged stoneware, especially his mugs. He trained through long apprenticeships in England, Ireland and Mashiko in Japan, and now works from a studio in North London. He releases three collections a year, which sell out within minutes to his millions of followers on Instagram and YouTube.  His book, By My Hands: A Potter's Apprenticeship, is a memoir of those ten years of learning. It mixes his story with sections on clays, glazes and tools, and has over 150 of his own photographs. Penguin's Particular Books imprint first published it in hardback in September 2023. It is now being published in paperback this October, and I will be selling it in our shop as soon as possible.

Having spent much of my life visiting my parents in Italy and my sister in Spain, I do feel a wee bit Mediterranean, and I think that way of life suits me very well. I'm forever on Rightmove looking at Dorset property, but I'm also dreaming of somewhere in Europe we can escape to once our son's education comes to an end and Brassica has been handed over to a younger generation. So I've included four houses under €325K: two in Italy, one in Sóller, Mallorca (see my recent blog post here), and one in Saint-Émilion, France, where I'd happily drink amazing wine to my heart's content.Links for the above, clockwise:
House in St. Émilion, France €299K
House in Camerino, Marche, Italy €265K
House to Restore in Soller, Mallorca, Spain €230K
House in Salento, Puglia, Italy €325K
If it is of any interest, I will be trying to write one blog post a week from now on...comment below if you interested in me doing this...Have a good weekend.