The timing for Goad’s latest project
couldn’t be better. After two years of staring
at our own four walls more than ever before,
we have hit peak interiors mania; we are a
nation obsessed with the home makeover
and turning our white boxes into anything
but. And in the era of same-day delivery, we
are used to instant gratification. Charity
shopping can give us that, but it also goes
hand in hand with more considered
spending and the slower layering of details
that make a truly stylish home.
“I grew up visiting flea markets with my
mum and buying something for my doll’s
house or my room,” she says. “As I got older,
everyone else was clubbing and spending
the money on outfits for the weekend.
I just loved doing up my room when I was
a student. I didn’t want to get something
everyone else had and still be spending a lot
of money — there’s definitely a thrill to
finding something cheap and original
that has character. It’s a lot more attainable,
as you can buy amazing things that are
made really well at a smidgen of the price.
And it’s less commitment — you can
experiment with different styles if
something isn’t a fortune.”Bargain
HUNT
The style set’s favourite
tastemaker Matilda Goad is
on a mission to convince the
nation’s interiors-obsessed
millennials that Oxfam is the
place to find an Insta-perfect
piece of homeware, says
Charlie Gowans-Eglinton
As Matilda Goad offers me a cup of tea, her
kitchen table is a perfectly Instagrammable
tablescape of mix-and-match crockery:
blue-spotted mugs, a gold lustreware milk
jug, a pink-handled teaspoon, a cream urn
vase full of daffodils. But unlike those
overpriced dinner party tablescaping kits
that offer a cookie-cutter approach to
eclectic taste, Goad’s is the real deal. She
bought the mugs new and the milk jug and
vase second-hand, and she designed the
teaspoon herself. She’s sitting on a blue
upholstered window seat, made to wrap
around her house’s bay window, while,
across her marble-topped Tulip table, I am
sitting on an antique chair with a rush seat.
It was 2016 when Goad first sat down at
her kitchen table to design the scalloped
lampshade that launched her business (and
spawned a thousand copycats). In February
of this year she rebranded, starting with a
new name, Matilda Goad & Co, and an
expanded team, including her first chief
operating officer, with plans to grow the
business in America (which already accounts
for a quarter of sales organically).
Her latest project, however, isn’t looking to
the new but the old. For the first time Oxfam£4
SHELL
DISH£20
CREAM
VASE£25
PUCCI
BOOK£4
SERVING
DISHis working on a campaign to promote its
homewares. Just as past campaigns with
fashion stylist Bay Garnett showed the
potential and sustainability of shopping for
second-hand clothes, this one will shine a
spotlight on the homewares in Oxfam’s
shops and on the website. And the British
designer Matilda Goad, 32, is just the
millennial for the job.Photographs Billal Taright32 • The Sunday Times Style