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Handmade Stories: Meet the Makers

An ode to our makers: the artisans, crafters and creators behind Liberty’s homeware brands set to transform your home into a handworked haven

By: Charlotte Olby

More Than a Store

Handmade Stories: Meet the Makers

An ode to our makers: the artisans, crafters and creators behind Liberty’s homeware brands set to transform your home into a handworked haven

By: Charlotte Olby

At Liberty, we are dedicated to procuring and sourcing not only the most hot-off-the-press brands, but are devoted pioneers of people, too. Every product has a story to tell, and each brand has its own artisan at its core, ready to be celebrated within our Tudor halls – that is what truly makes Liberty More Than a Store.

Read More: What Makes Liberty More Than a Store

Our tastemakers (the Liberty buyers) discover brands from across the world to curate for you, dear reader, the freshest new talent in interiors, from experimental artisans to courageous changemakers and progressive innovators. This is a space for showcasing artisans and their unique processes – tracing the lifespan of a brand. Whether it's the maker's distinctive style, the inspiration behind its origins, or time-honoured techniques, there is one common thread between the brands that live in our homeware halls: a shared enthusiasm for their craft that produces vastly differing results, offering a wealth of inspiration to excite your own creative instincts. Get ready to meet our makers.

Read More: Meet the Makers: Tiipi Founder, Spandana Gopal

In the Studio with… Henry Holland Studio

Meet the Makers

It was during the early stages of lockdown that Henry Holland, famed designer and former Creative Director of House of Holland, really started to promote his new ceramics via Instagram, sparking the idea to set up his own namesake studio. Originally coming to pottery as a creative outlet after winding down from House of Holland, the calming art of creating continues to be a rewarding form of self-expression for Henry. Launching officially in April 2021 – and with the first collection selling out within 48 hours – Holland made his ceramics debut in Liberty with a bespoke colourway in May 2021, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The Creative Process

Not tending to plan his pieces, what Holland loves most about pottery is that you can experiment as you go, creating different shapes and forms, experimenting with glazes and techniques to find what works and what doesn’t. Some of his favourite shapes have been formed from ‘free styling’, leading to the creation of new vase styles, tableware pieces and expanding into new colourways and patterns, such as his checkerboard design, beloved on Instagram. Collaborating with a range of British brands and artisans, Holland has been able to continue his playful aesthetic into glassware, rugs and lighting, too.

Honing a Craft

Each and every Henry Holland Studio piece is built by hand in the brand’s Hackney studio, where regular ceramicists work alongside Holland to keep up with demand. The brand’s signature aesthetic is a personal take on the hand-built Nerikomi technique, which uses different coloured clays to create patterns within the body of the piece, rather than hand-painting or glazing. Having stumbled across this technique on YouTube, Nerikomi presented the best solution to taking up ceramics at home, sitting at the kitchen table, without the need for ‘throwing’ at a wheel. The technique itself involves the slow method of stacking, folding and rolling differently brightly coloured clays into slabs which are then hand-moulded into different forms. Due to the hand-made nature, each piece is completely unique.

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Henry Holland Studio Green and White Dinner Plate, £50

Henry Holland Studio White on White Small Milk Jug, £85

In the Studio with… Hadeland Glassverk

Meet the Makers

Based just outside of Oslo in a beautiful Nordic setting, Hadeland Glassverk have been expertly manufacturing glassware for over 250 years. Hadeland is Norway’s oldest industrial company still in operation today and has been producing premium glassware for homes since 1762. Based in Jevnaker, surrounded by the idyllic landscapes of Lake Randsfjord, the factory that once supplied apothecary glass for medicines, has become a maker of beautifully crafted functional designs, fit for the contemporary home. Alongside a strong Norwegian aesthetic, each design is progressive but still respectful of the brand's long history.

The Creative Process

All glass blowing takes place at the brand’s home on Lake Randsfjord, where they have maintained production since their founding day – and the furnace is always on. All their pieces, tableware, drinkware and lighting are handmade, mouth-blown by skilled craftsmen and women who lovingly make each piece. Complex techniques are used to grind the crystal by hand, colour glass and form the molten material, which can be viewed first hand in the factory, as they welcome the design community to visit and experience the historic environment via tours of the site.

Honing a Craft

With the brand’s rich history embedded into its DNA, each Hadeland piece is made using time honoured techniques to deliver bespoke art glass and tablewares. The ‘Finn’ pattern is one of their oldest designs, and appears on everything from stemware to crystal globes. It says so much about the detail and handcrafted nature of Hadeland’s designs, while speaking to a time when crystal was decadent, and pattern was embraced. It epitomises the sheer skill of our craft and truly is cut glass – created by hand grinding each object to complete an engraved pattern on the crystal.

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Hadeland Glassverk

Blom Mini Vases Set

£35.00

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Hadeland Glassverk

Cocoa Ella Vase

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Hadeland Glassverk

Finn Whiskey Glass

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Hadeland Glassverk

Montreal Cocktail Glass

£80.00

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Hadeland Glassverk

Montreal Cocktail Glass

£75.00

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In the Studio with… Vaisselle

Meet the Makers

Dreamt up by fashion-turned-tableware designer Léa Zana, Vaisselle is a tableware brand built from a desire to animate mealtimes during the now-infamous lockdown. Having studied Fine Art in Paris, and inspired by her childhood memories in France, all pieces are designed by hand using watercolour and pens in her home studio in London – sticking to the same rules of working: no computer, no mood boards. After all, you can’t ‘pin’ a memory.

The Creative Process

Zana caught the ceramic bug from her grandmother who loved scouring flea markets for quirky objects, taking her on ‘hunts' almost every weekend. Each Vaisselle collection is fuelled by a love for her grandmother and their memories spent together in the South West of France – her attic filled with vintage pieces, her home laden with gingham and ornate striped lounge chairs, and the garden blooming with all varieties of flowers. She grew up during World War II so making the most of small daily moments was her way to escape reality, and this sentiment is very much the essence of Vaisselle.

Honing a Craft

After nailing the inspiration behind each vibrant, mismatched collection, Zana turns to a husband and wife duo in the South of Spain to lovingly hand craft each piece. A small family-run business, the team of two work together in a slow process. The husband shapes the clay while his wife hand paints each design onto the ceramic, never using stencils or decals so that every piece is entirely unique, taking a minimum of eight weeks from sketch to finished product. They work with ancient techniques; using white local clay, lead free paint and natural pigments and drying each piece in the Spanish sun in order to truly respect traditional craftsmanship. Zana wouldn’t have it any other way.

Read More: Reinventing the Wheel: How to Get into Pottery