Remember Habitat? Well it’s looking pretty good these days. I was asked along to the launch of the new Spring/Summer collection in the Regent store on Tuesday and it feels like the products and the store [if not the website just quite yet] are on a steady footing to get back to form.
In January 2012, 6 months after Habitat was sold to Home Retail Group, Polly Dickens was appointed as their new creative director. Dickens was previously creative director at the Conran Shop and design director at Anthropologie and has a long standing relationship with Terence Conran.
One thing Habitat always excelled at was outstanding outdoor pieces and this collection certainly hits a parr with the good old days. The new Spring/Summer collection is bright and tactile with craftsmanship at the centre of each piece.
The collection celebrates the modern silhouettes that we have come to know and love from Habitat but weaves in elements of nostalgia; like lovely stoneware ceramics in chunky silhouettes and graphic patterning or their lovely wicker seating collection shot through with modern colourful details, that would sit just as comfortably in your coolest grandma’s home as well as your own Hackney abode!
There was also a time when Habitat’s pricing was out of control – but over the past few years it feels more reflective of the market around it, if not better priced.
I bought this beautiful part glazed stoneware Marne Jug [about 15cm tall] for £8 and a pair of Strip multicoloured hand-painted stoneware side-plates also at £8 each, and honestly they are both so exquisite and weighty in person that for once I felt like I was getting a ‘bargain’! Can you believe it?!
Also their textiles are really well priced – this reversible handprinted patterned Zatti quilt [also seen above] can be bought for £100 whereas a similar less beautiful version retails for the same price at Ikea [and my husband says I am a frivolous shopper!].
M&S Spring Summer 2010 Preview
Skandium Spring Summer Preview 2010
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