I have always loved vintage and antique homeware, but not simply because it is old.
For me, it is much more about the feeling a piece has. The fact that it has already had a life, that it has been used and loved before, and that it can now become part of someone else’s home.
I love the idea of homes being filled with things that mean something, whether that is because you know the story behind them, you remember where you found them, or simply because they make you smile every time you walk past them.
That is really the thinking behind how I source for House of Brunswick.
I want a home to tell you who lives there
I think one of the things I am always trying to avoid is a home feeling like it has all been bought in one go.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying new, but I do think it is very easy for interiors to start looking the same. We see the same trends, the same furniture, the same accessories, and before long a room can feel as though it could belong to anyone.
Old things change that. A strange little pot, a piece of studio pottery, a jug you found in Portugal, a bowl with a glaze you have never seen before. Those are the things that start to make a home feel personal.
I love walking into someone’s house and immediately getting a sense of who lives there. The things they have collected, the things they clearly love, the pieces that make you want to ask where they came from.
That, to me, is what makes a home interesting.
Sometimes I buy something because it is completely absurd
I think homes need humour.
They need the slightly silly object on the shelf and the thing a guest picks up and says, “What on earth is this?”
Not every item in a room needs to be elegant, important or tasteful. This is one of the biggest reasons I love sourcing vintage and antique homeware.
There is real joy in finding something you have never seen before.
Not rare in the serious collector sense necessarily. Just unusual. A shape you do not recognise. A bit of kitchenalia with a bizarre single purpose. A ceramic piece with a glaze that feels completely different to everything else on the table.
And then there is the fact that often there really is only one.
I think that changes how you buy things. You are not choosing between fifty identical versions. You either love that particular one or you do not.
Then there are the stories
Sometimes I know quite a lot about something I find. I can work out the maker, roughly when it was made, what it was used for and where it came from.
Sometimes I know almost nothing. Strangely, I enjoy both.
I love researching a piece and finding out that the funny little implement I have picked up was actually used for some incredibly specific job in a nineteenth-century kitchen. But I also love an object where all you really know is that somebody made it, somebody used it and, for whatever reason, people kept hold of it long enough for it to reach you.
That bit gets me.
You are holding something that has already existed in other kitchens, sat on other shelves, been packed into boxes during house moves and survived who knows how many clear-outs. Then it ends up in another home and carries on.
I’m not looking for perfect
This probably explains a lot of what appears on House of Brunswick.
Crazing does not frighten me. Nor does a bit of tarnish, an old repair, a faded patch or the sort of wear that comes from an object actually having been used.
Condition obviously matters, and there is a difference between lovely age and something simply being knackered, but I do not want old things to look new.
And yes, sustainability is a big part of it
Although perhaps not in the way that makes for a very worthy paragraph about sustainability.
I just find it slightly mad that there is so much good stuff already in the world and we are constantly making more of it.
There are cupboards, barns, markets, warehouses and houses filled with ceramics, glassware, furniture, textiles and kitchen things that have already lasted longer than a lot of the things we buy new today.
Why would we not use them?
Of course I buy new things. I am not living some completely secondhand existence. But I do try to think about whether the thing I want already exists before buying another newly made version of it.
My sourcing criteria are not particularly sophisticated
Good colour helps. So does a lovely glaze. I like weight. Texture. Things made from proper materials, especially wood. Evidence that a human being was involved somewhere along the way.
I have an obvious weakness for French kitchenalia, studio pottery, folk art, glass, handmade ceramics and anything with a slightly mysterious original purpose.
I have bought things because they are beautifully made and I have bought things because they have a ridiculous face.
Really, I’m looking for the things you weren’t looking for
That is probably the best way of describing House of Brunswick.
I want you to be able to come looking for a bowl and leave thinking about a strange wooden box you had never seen before.
I want there to be things that are useful and things that are beautiful, but also things that you would never have thought to type into a search bar because you did not know they existed.
Mostly, I am looking for the things that make me stop.
Because I reckon if they can do that to me in a freezing market at seven in the morning, there is a decent chance they might do it to somebody else too.