STILL STORY 1: BACKCASTING
During 2020, Alice collaborated with photographer Agenda Brown to create her first STILL STORY, a deeper narrative journey through Alice’s early life and inspirations. The STILL STORY is a way of capturing and presenting Alice’s creative process, the format reflecting the thoughtfulness and consideration she applies to her work. We’re delighted to preview some of the beautiful images and themes Alice raises over the course of the journey. This is an excerpt of a longer interview that features in STILL STORY Magazine (available for purchase from Spring 2023).
Magical Narratives
I love storytelling - all of my career has been about this from theatre, through curating & writing to where I am today. I’m inspired by beauty and superlative craftsmanship, and I want to tell people the story of why these things are important for our culture and our soul. But for myself, it’s my poetry, my pleasure, an expression of my femininity and playfulness. I've read countless fairy tales as a child and an adult, dark and light, Western & Eastern, and that little bit of magic …. there's an element of that in my work too I hope.
Slow Luxury
My ‘style’ is really about collaboration and juxtaposition, about craftsmanship and heritage, and colour. I also take quite a curatorial approach to my work; there’s a lot of narrative behind the collections. So I hope people will fall in love with the stories behind the design, behind the people who made them, behind the techniques and heritage of the craftsmanship – and add their own stories to the gems as they become part of their lives. I think the number of craft techniques I work with might grow, but the principals of my practice and the approach to creating the work will remain the same.
That approach is based on the concept of slow luxury, celebrating the beauty of ancient mastercraft and privileging artisanship alongside fine materials. In a world of fast luxury, the challenge is to express the value of alternative choices to a wide audience but I am extremely passionate about finding a way to do that.
Curated Histories
I think there’s a strong link between where I am now and the home life I had as a child; this is constantly reemerging in my design approach. I was born in London, and grew up in the same house all my childhood. I grew up surrounded by books, experimental gardening and love; there was a stillness and consideration that defines the pace at which I now like to work. As a result, I believe in the power of objects to retain and emit memory … on a personal and social level. The pace, commitment, expertise, and contemplation that the handmade demands results in objects that radiate, which speak to us and communicate for us on so many levels.
Backcasting
Society often speaks about fashioning the future, an idealized concept of looking forward that is very human but is also bound by the present and the past, the way in which we see and filter things around us, reading the runes. For me, I am fascinated by the way in which our histories shape us; backcasting rather than forecasting if you like. Philosopher Walter Benjamin talked about human experience as a labyrinth, where past, present and future fold on top of each other, one informing the other. This way of reading the world feels much more fertile to me than chasing a future that is actually just the present in utopian clothing.
Fire
Colour means life, in both its presence and its absence, vivacity, passion; I can almost taste colour, it brings me fire and energy.
Design Is … ?
Curating, juxtaposing, story telling, tasting, smelling, touching, painting, dreaming … the first time I started to feel I was finding my voice (because that is what this is for me), I experienced that very much as a physical feeling, like the electricity of powerful energy coursing through me, an embodied sensation
Mottos
Small is beautiful
Fortune favours the brave
Good things come to those who wait
