Homes & Gardens UK - 09.2019

Design moment

Staffordshirepottery. Using patterns

cut into a sponge, Emma found she

could create motifs. And she still does.

She had never intended to take on

production herself, beyond the early

samples, and by February 1985 the

factory had taught two girls to apply

her patterns. ‘I was approaching

shops and had so many orders that in

April I took a stand at the Top Drawer

trade fair. It was a huge success – but

I still had no proper business plan!’

Emma always held in her mind the

joyful impact of her mother’s dresser

in creating her designs. She had no

plan for a dinner service – it was mugs,

jugs, teapots, bowls and plates, for

presents and dressers, of course. Her

other dream was to make a Stoke-on-

Trent factory come alive again and,

12 years later, she bought Eastwood

Works. ‘I wanted to put the spotlight

on traditional British manufacture

and now, walking through my factory,

this skill is once again esteemed and

that means everything to me.’&

‘I WASlooking for two cups and

saucers as a birthday present for my

mother,’ says Emma Bridgewater. ‘It

was October 1984 and what I saw in

the shops had no connection with the

gorgeous way my mother lived, or her

kitchen dresser full of mismatched

china.’ In that instant Emma, fresh

from graduating in English Literature

and with no business experience,

determined to create a new kind of

pottery. Within two weeks she had an

appointment with a model maker in a

Stoke-on-Trent factory. ‘He turned my

wobbly drawings into pottery,’ she says,

‘and made 100 pieces that I decorated,

glazing them in the bathroom.’ She

adopted the spongeware decorating

technique after a study of early English

STYLE LANDMARKS FROM THE DECADE

■ 1980 Architect
Ettore Sottsass
founded Memphis, a
design collective whose
furniture, fabrics and
ceramics in clashing
patterns expressed
the group’s free-
thinking attitude.

■ 1984 Peter

Thornton’s book

Authentic Decor

informed the demand

for archive textile prints

and curtain treatments,

just as the desire for

English country house

style went mainstream.

■ 1983 Ian Mankin

opened his London

shop to sell utility

fabrics for interiors.

He purchased fabric

straight from the loom,

then organised its

washing and finishing to

keep prices affordable.

■ 1987 Britain’s first

Ikea store opened in

Warrington. The

company’s aim was ‘to

bring good design to

all’. Enthusiasm for its

products also embraced

an ongoing relationship

with flatpack.

1980 1983 1984 1987 1989

■ 1989 A fragment

of 18th-century

Venetian flatweave

inspired Roger Oates

to adapt shuttle-looms

to weave similar

narrow-width runners

as an alternative to

fitted carpet on stairs.

1980-1989

Continuing her design series, Celia Rufey finds out how Emma

Bridgewater brought kitchen-dresser appeal to the potteries

PHOTOGRAPHS

(MAIN IMAGE) ANDREW MONTGOMERY; (MEMPHIS ) MEMPHIS MILANO