House of Hackney celebrates traditional British craft and design with an unmistakable sense irreverence and panache. The brand, which came to life over a decade ago round the kitchen table of husband-and-wife duo Frieda Gormley and Javvy M Royle, has spearheaded sustainable and long lasting design from day one.
“I didn’t want to contribute to mass production, and when we started the high street didn’t value people or the planet,” Frieda, who worked as a buyer at Topshop before she conceived of the interiors brand, says. “We’d just bought our first house and had a tiny garden. We’d lived through a decade of minimalism and wanted to bring nature into our home, but it was a time of identikit Ikea interiors.” Inspired by the beauty of the past, traditional craftsmanship and using nature as their muse, the duo had no experience of working in the interiors sector, coming at it from an angle of what they were passionate about. Taking a tour of the UK, they found factories in pockets of the country that had been passed down from father to son; thirteen years later and these are still the factories they work with.
Their interiors line has grown, it now includes wallpaper, fabrics, paints, cushions, lights, rugs, apparel, mirrors, bedding, candlesticks as well as sofas, armchairs and a motte-and-bailey Norman castle in Cornwall, which is available for short or long stays, but their process and integrity remains. “We are constantly looking at nature and how we can bring it into our system,” Javvy tells me. “Can we change the product, can we make it more sustainable. For example, a couple of years ago everyone laughed at me for stuffing cushions with wool. But we have been working with the wool keepers and now the cushions have a soft shape and feel, and everyone else is doing it. Wool is much kinder than feather, for obvious reasons. So that one shift has changed the whole industry. If we can keep making those little shifts constantly through the industry… the next thing is going to be trees and paper, so I am asking, what can we do instead of cutting down trees?”
We want to inspire our team to forge deeper relationships with nature through food and garden projects.
Supporting industry and the people who work in the factories has been their ethos since day one, and they have continuously worked to find an efficient process; working in small runs, making on demand, and implementing technology into old ways of working – the Georgian looms that weave their wool now have modern technology interrogated into them so they can deliver a high end product, and ensure the factory workers are given a fair wage, and wallpapers are printed and drop shipped directly to the customer. “We need to tweak the systems,” Javvy says, “you don’t need to start again. You don’t need to make massive volume. You can make things on demand and use technology. Everyone needs to get paid well and we need to redress the balance of the cost of everything.” The brand were recently certified B-Corp – the B stands for benefits that consider the people and the planet. “It’s generally quite difficult to become certified B-Corp,” Frieda says, “But we were doing it all from day one anyway. For us, our ambition, in terms of targets on ourselves, is much higher anyway. We are a sustainable business but we need to move to be a regenerative one, which is very circular. That involves internal and externals and suppliers and our team. And we need to unlearn things,” she continues. “We shouldn’t all be strapped to a desk from morning to night, maybe we should be walking around in nature doing our calls. And, we are really passionate about organic food, so we are coming up with strange ideas like buying organic veg in bulk for our team and they can take home what they need. We want to inspire our team to forge deeper relationships with nature through food and garden projects.”
Every product that House of Hackney makes is inherently designed to last more than a lifetime. The brand has been a story of slow growth, celebrating the diversity and the community of the borough of Hackney as it grows. “We need to make sure we champion and protect nature, it’s our design muse,” Frieda concludes. “I love the Maya Angelou quote, when you know better, do better. We used to plant trees but then we realised that protecting ancient woodlands was important and efficient.” Frieda and Javvy might have started small, but they are aware that small changes can cause a big ripple effect. B-Corp certification sets a precedent to make everyone – their companies and others move forward, Javvy surmises, “it’s a journey, and one we should all be on.” And he’s not wrong.
