Special Episode
Museum of the Home || The Yard Sale
Welcome to the second part of our special two-part series looking at the Museum of the Home. Twig Hutchinson came back to co-host and we recorded the episode overlooking the beautiful gardens of the museum. On the day of the Yard Sale they were teeming with stalls, treasures and conversation.
When recording, Twig and I were acutely aware of all that was going on in the world, of the precarious and precious nature of home. If Covid has had us counting our blessings, the situation in Ukraine has us cherishing our freedom and our safety. Our freedom to gather, to create, to speak freely. And in this episode we do just that.
We hope to give a flavour of the event by conversing with a wonderful collection of guests asking them about their relationship with the museum, their own creative practices and their homes. Our trio of guests are architect William Smalley, co-founder of Collagerie and Colville Lucinda Chambers and perfumer Maya Njie.
Image Credit: Henry Crowder
Our first guest once said ‘we should never forget the power of architecture to move us and to express matters quite other than bricks and mortar’. I couldn’t agree more with architect William Smalley. William’s work speaks quietly but with authority. It is intentional but never forced. It is plain with an emphasis on ‘having no thing rather than the wrong thing’. His projects are for people not just photographers. And yet, what an extra ordinary photograph it always makes.
We discuss his first visit to the Museum of the Home, his view on museum architecture, the approach he takes to his own work and home and what the future may hold.
“I long for museums to be more domestic and for art galleries to stop being perfect white walls. I long to design an art gallery which has rough white walls and much more akin to Barbara’s Hepworth’s studio with terracotta tiles and paint spattered and much closer to the space where the art was made. ”
“The blueprint of the flats in the towerblock that I grew up in back in Sweden were all the same. The layout was the same but the interiors and the smells would always be different. I loved seeing the variety of styles, cultures, background, taste, generation all together in one community.”
Maya Njie is the founder of her eponymous perfume brand based in London. Her background lies in surface design and photography but, inspired by an old family photo album, she set about trying to capture a moment in time, by way of scent. She is self-taught and her clear focus is on artisanal blends mixed in small, fresh batches, filtered and bottled individually by hand. Her influences stretch across the globe and through the generations and you can’t help but be drawn in by her approach and style. Maya shares how her scents are developed, how Sweden and London are both ‘home’, the influence of her West African heritage, what has made her home special and how she scents her home.
Image Credit: Jacob Lillis
Image Credit: Sam Copeland for Pangaia and Collagerie
“I think that comfort in your home or on yourself is hugely underrated. I don’t think that I have ever met a stylish person who has been uncomfortable. If you can’t walk in your high heels you won’t be stylish. It goes for home as well. You need to be able to fling yourself on a sofa and put your feet up.”
Lucinda Chambers was the Fashion Director at British Vogue for 25 years. She is a designer, creative consultant and business woman with a magpie eye and an incredible grasp of colour. Her shoots at Vogue often referenced vintage decades without the images every looking anachronistic. She was creative consultant for Miuccia Prada, Jil Sander and Marni. After leaving Vogue she joined forces with Molly Molloy and Kristin Forss to set up fashion and interior brand Colville. As if that wasn’t enough, she is also the co-founder of Collagerie, an online platform for fashion, interiors, beauty and lifestyle alongside Serena Hood. She has been quoted as having ‘the kind of style you just can’t buy’ but at the Yard Sale it was in fact possible to buy a little of Lucinda’s style as she was one of the wonderful stallholders at the Yard Sale!
We consider the entwined relationship of fashion and interiors, how she has developed her own home over the last 30 years, colour, discovery and the joy of being acquisitive.
Producer: Charles Tomlinson
Branding: Ben Prescott