In conversation with No. 22 Home

No. 22 Home is known for its playful and vibrant take on giftware, crockery, and tableware. How do you incorporate these elements while maintaining a sophisticated and elegant aesthetic? 

It's a careful balance and curation with the designers we collaborate with to ensure our products have that fun, playful element while also being classic and sophisticated. Our products are designed with the aim of creating memories and we always want our customers to remember the great times they have had when using them. We feel we need the playful and vibrant details in our products for people to remember them, while also being timeless so they can be used for several years across many different occasions. 

The brand takes inspiration from global cultures and styles. Which specific cultures or regions have had the most significant influence on your product designs? 

Greek culture has had a huge influence on the premise behind No. 22 Home. As someone with Greek and Cypriot heritage, I have drawn inspiration from the Greek love for entertaining and making people happy to create the brand and our product range. For each of our Destinations Collections, I have taken inspiration from my experiences and appreciation of these cities to create each of the collections in collaboration with the designer. For Capri, it was the abundance of lemons you found throughout the island and the delicate designs of the tiles on the city walls. For Paris, it was the morning ritual of breaking a warm croissant while drinking a coffee, having the most amazing steak frites in sidewalk bistros and the passenger bikes that locals would use throughout the city. 

Your collection of Paris-inspired plates garnered an incredible 5,000-person waitlist in 2023. Please set the scene around this sought-after collection that captured the imagination. 

What's not to love about Paris? After almost three years of no international travel due to COVID, this collection launched just as borders were opening and people were starting to travel again. For those who were not travelling, this collection either made you want to go to Paris or conjured up positive memories of the City of Love. The delicate, hand-drawn designs by the talented Lauren from The Blackline Bottega were so inviting that it was easy to feel love at first sight for them, hence the strong demand and waitlist. 

Can you share more details about the quality materials and skilled artisans involved in creating your products? 

Most of our products, specifically our tableware, are produced by hand in one way or another. The designs on our Capri plates are hand-drawn, with artisans painting the lines and dots without machinery. It blows you away to see it in person - thousands of plates being drawn on in vibrant colours, each with different tones and strokes. We get a lot of questions about this as people are confused about why their plates may not look identical, but we believe this adds to the charm of them and makes you feel like you could be in Capri. 

You are committed to bringing affordable luxury-inspired edits to the Australian homewares market. Did you identify a gap in the market that inspired this focus? 

Not really. Despite my best efforts to remain objective, I feel I am my biggest customer and I've always tried to create products that I would use in my home for a price point I'd feel comfortable paying. Our products are made from high-quality materials that will not easily date, so we sit above other brands creating trendy and loud products, while not being in the same league as luxury home and tableware companies. We have spent time navigating how we operate in this market, but I do feel the way we have carved our niche was quite organic. 

What does the concept of "everyday luxury" mean to you? 

I have a rule with my husband - buy quality and buy it once. This doesn't mean buying luxury goods for everything. Instead, we believe that if we need or want to buy something, it is always better to buy a quality, and often more expensive option, so we can get longer use out of it and it will work out to be more cost-effective over time. I use this approach with everything from shoes, handbags, blazers and more, which means my wardrobe and everyday items are more about quality over quantity. 

How do you see No. 22 Home's products evolving to accommodate the ever-evolving world of entertaining and home design? 

We always want to evolve and improve our products, but as always, there is a delicate balance to ensure they are timeless and not just following trends. Whether for entertaining or for daily use, our products are designed to evoke warm, positive emotions, ensuring that our customers cherish the moments associated with them. From intimate meals to gatherings with friends, our aim is to be part of those special memories and we feel that there will always be a need for sophisticated and quality products.