With the beginning of a hopeful new year and home working likely to be a long-term cultural shift all over the world, it feels like a good time to get more intentional and creative with our home work spaces. With most of our team now largely working from home both in the UK and in Kenya, we’re having discussions about what rituals, adaptations or small purchases are helping us work better and work happier.
This year, the Fairtrade Foundation is telling the stories of female cocoa farmers through its #SheDeserves campaign. We’re delighted to see the spotlight on women for Fairtrade Fortnight since the vast majority of our incredible weavers are female farmers. Like the cocoa farmers in West Africa, our weavers are juggling the demands of family life with the ups and downs of agricultural work and drought – weaving their wonderful baskets when and where they can for a more dignified life.
A new interiors colour palette is melting its way into our awareness as spring ebbs into summer, and it’s a revisiting of gentle, earthen tones like terracotta and taupe, gold, peach and blush. It's just a little bit gorgeous...
Peach: @michelleogundehin Instagram moodboard
This is a return to the earth, the sand and the soil - and possibly the perfect accompaniment to natural materials like sisal and palm. We’re calling this soothing colour palette Desert Dusk, because it’s all about natural hues, with an inclination towards warmer tones and soft, feminine curves.
It’s a beautiful complement to the New Neutrals trend that took shape earlier this year, and it’s an ideal corollary of the everyday ‘super luxe’ trend that’s also big news at the moment – all that delicious velvet upholstery, marble and brass, and rich jewel tones we’re seeing in the homes and pixellated worlds of influencers like Erica Davies, @the_girl_with_the_green_sofa, and @thelondonchatter on Instagram.
@junestudioamsterdam Instagram
Elle Decoration’s Michelle Gundehin has written recently about the current rise of ‘povera’ finishes like rattan, bamboo, sisal and hemp being employed in the place of more traditionally ‘haute’ materials, and incorporated into the most luxe interiors spaces.
It’s possibly part of a more seismic shift towards more sustainable materials and practices in homebuilding that has led a renewal of interest in natural fibres in the interiors world, and this speaks directly to everything we stand for at The Basket Room.
Shop our Desert Dusk collection here.
In June 2015, The Basket Room ventured off-road, to visit three weaving cooperatives, with the hope of working closely with the women & establishing a long,working partnership. South-West of Nairobi, amongst the pineapple fields and hills, scattered villages are joined together by a very dusty & bumpy track.
