43 BACK TO THE FUTURE

London-based designer Christopher Jenner’s work is the perfect marriage of technology and heritage. Just this year, he spent time in Yixing, the eastern province of Jiangsu, China, learning all about the special properties of the area’s purple Zisha clay. Impressed by its porous, heat-retaining nature, he created a modern range of homewares, ‘Yixing’ (above, from £40 for a small plate; yixing.com), using the province’s time-honoured techniques. The tea set absorbs flavours and oils over time, producing brews that only intensify with age and use. At the same time, Jenner has also been helping to revive historic English silver manufacturer Elkington & Co. He spent time in Sheffield to understand the brand’s ethos, and has since produced a collection of tableware ( below, from £120; elkingtonandco.com) blending traditional manufacturing methods with his own minimal style. In fact, if there’s heritage at the heart of a design project, then Christopher Jenner is the designer to know (christopher-jenner.com).