Top of the crocks
British ceramics are back in fashion
Whatever it was that put ceramics back on the national radar – and it could have been the Downton effect (the Crawleys’ impeccable period tableware is, to some, the real star of the drama series...), the sea of ceramic poppies that popped up around the Tower of London last year, or Mary Berry’s way with a cakestand – this strand of the made-in-Britain crafts movement has been well and truly revived.
The high street is now awash with incredible ceramics (you can’t move in John Lewis for Emma Bridgewater crockery), and design museums are busy putting our historic pottery centre-stage. The York Art Gallery hopes to tap into our rediscovered love of pots with the opening next month of a Centre of Ceramic Art; its focus will be on studio ceramics and, in particular, British Modernism. Then, in September, the six-week British Ceramics Biennial in Stoke-onTrent’s pottery heartland will showcase the best in contemporary ceramic art and craft.
But the proof of the pudding is World of Wedgwood, a £34 million visitor attraction on Stoke’s outskirts, which opens to the public today. Some of the archival exhibits are extraordinary: who knew that, during its 250-year existence, Wedgwood produced kitsch lobster salad bowls complete with lobster-claw servers a century years before the Surrealists? Or that leading artists of their day such as Eric Ravilious in the 1930s and Eduardo Paolozzi in the 1970s designed for the brand?
On a new factory tour, you can witness the manufacturing process, from the firing to the handpainting of prestigeware, and even throw your own jasperware pot, under the expert tutelage of Wedgwood artisans. For children, there’s a Fairyland-lustre themed playroom and a familyfriendly dining hall. For bargain hunters, there’s an outlet store, which includes top-end ranges, such as prestige vases, which you can snap up for £11,000, rather than £28,000.
Sitting in the chic Tea Room, sipping Darjeeling First Flush from a Parkland tea set – the fine bone china tableware with palladian motifs in copper and gold introduced last year – it’s hard to believe that six years ago, this British heritage brand was on the brink of extinction.
In 2009, Irish-owned Waterford Wedgwood went into administration. However, a US-based private equity company, KPS Capital Partners, turned out to be its white knight. Having turned around the brand – by investing in new contemporary designs, expanding into gifting and home decor, and pushing the brand abroad, particularly Asia, where the quintessential English design resonates strongly – Waterford Wedgwood Royal Doulton (WWRD) has now been sold again, for an astounding £280 million. Its new owner is Fiskars, a Finnish heritage brand that manufactures those instantly familiar orange-handled kitchen scissors, and whose portfolio also includes Iittala and Royal Copenhagen. It feels like a good fit.
A major part of WWRD’s success has been the commissioning of today’s best designers. Recent collaborators include Kit Kemp, the hip Brit hotelier who produced Wedgwood’s Mythical Creatures teaset, whose folkloric motifs appear as though delicately hand-stitched on to the china. Arris, one of its newest collections of fine bone china tableware, in a mix of warm metallics, is bang on trend.
Meanwhile, Barber Osgerby, the industrial design studio that came up with the 2012 Olympic Torch, has produced a collection for Wedgwood’s sister company, Royal Doulton. The unglazed Olio range comes in four natural colours and is designed to appeal to the modern eclectic sensibility – it can sit happily alongside other objects in a home, rather than solely within the constraints of a collection.
The vogue for affordable luxury, as well as our renewed appreciation for an earthier, handcrafted aesthetic, has helped propel a new generation of ceramicists, best represented by The New Craftsmen, a collective that showcases the skills of British crafters.
Sheridan Coakley, of the British retail and manufacturing brand SCP, says the revival came at a critical point. “It happened just as all the old skills were about to disappear, following the demise of the old businesses – through their own stupidity, thinking they should produce cheap items to compete,” he says. “The small independent workshops that have survived have learnt that price is not the issue, but their skills and heritage is what people want. The bigger firms are doing well through investment in new technology and understanding that design is just as important as price.”
Reinventing traditions is always a popular design approach, and one that’s served Richard Brendon well; a specialist in contemporary bone china design, he has reimagined the iconic Willow pattern, the blue-and-white plate design synonymous with the Victorian dining room, for the 21st century: “It started with me sandblasting vintage Willow china at college, but we worked out a way to manufacture new pieces,” he says.
Brendon has also reinvigorated Fortnum & Mason’s inhouse tableware with an eau de nil version of the striped Patternity range. He will also launch a hand-painted Art Decoinspired range, Arc, at the London Design Festival in September.
Whether you hanker after a china tea set from Wedgwood or something unique from a young artisan, British ceramics are in very good hands.
Workshops have learnt that skills and heritage are what people want