Matilda Goad on Balance, Joy and Playful Homeware Design

0:00You can have a bad day, go to bed, the sun still comes up every morning and I really think you can lean into that and look at each day as a new fresh opportunity to do something.

0:14While I'm a very impatient person, in the home I'm quite happy to wait to find the perfect peace

0:24It's a space that is warming, it's a space that brings people together It loves throughout in a way, it sees every emotion, it sees everything

0:37Hello, Happy New Year folks and welcome to a new episode of Homing. Today's guest is the designer Matilda Goad. Having started out as a fashion stylist, Matilda pivoted to homewares after the phenomenal success of her first product, a lampshade with a scalloped edge. Her brand, which is called MG & Co, now sells everything from cutlery to door handles, and she's just opened a gleaming new shop off the Pimlico Road, which is a clever modern take on the traditional hardware store. We recorded this podcast at her beautiful Victorian terraced house in London, which she bought after knocking on the door and persuading the owner to show her around in his dressing gown.

1:23Matilda's home is like a three-dimensional portfolio. where objects from flea markets come and go, and she experiments with colour and pattern. It's also a safe space for her, and she gave birth to both of her children at home. We discussed the early signs of her entrepreneurial spirit, and it's clear that she's always had a lot of energy and drive. She tells me about the self-care that's needed to maintain a balance, including lengthy breathwork sessions and a close eye on nutrition. Matilda kindly gave me a tour of her house as well which you can watch over on Patreon. She showed me all sorts of ingenious details like the bespoke fridge and drinks cabinet she's made, a children's stair gate that disappears into a cupboard and a set of hinged bar stools inspired by Japanese sushi counters.

2:16Head over to patreon.com slash homing with Matt to take a look at that. Here's the podcast and I very much hope you enjoy it. Hi Matilda, not normally this comfortable so thank you for the lovely setup. I always start with going back to your early life so I believe you grew up on a National Trust estate, is that right? Yeah. So tell us about that. So I grew up in a cottage on the grounds of Up Park which um yeah is a beautiful national trust house that was in my family a long time ago but now is owned by the national trust um and there was actually a big fire there huge fire that burnt most of it down a few weeks after i was born do you mean the main house in the main house yeah um and then my family along with my cousins we've all sort of live in cottages around on the grounds okay so um It was an amazing childhood.

3:19You know, it really was the kind of expanse and having cousins all around. I'm actually the youngest in my family by 12 years. So while I have brothers, you know, my childhood was kind of, you know, I was almost like an only child and really left to my own devices. You know, of course, pre pre phones and the digital world. So I remember there was a program called Art Attack and they used to create amazing things. And that kind of was my world. I was probably a bit of a loner in a way of constantly just kind of being a bit bored and finding ways to fill that gap. So what do you make of that growing up in the countryside with a lot of time to yourself in your own head?

4:07Do you think that that contributed to your creativity? I think so. you know I think it's also kind of in my blood I think um tell me about that then well my my grandfather was an artist and my mother had a kids clothing company that she ran in sort of 70s 80s um what was that called it was called Emma Goad and she used to have a shop on Beach and Place and it was very um definitely not what my kids are dressed in today but you know it was little sailor suits and romper outfits and so I think creativity is always kind of you know it's been a kind of the running the common thread in my family I remember pile you know fancy dress box the fancy dress box you know piles of fabric falling out of kind of shoe boxes rick rack you know constantly it was it was kind of playing around and being creative and you know in in lots of different guises I you know used to move my room around the whole time I then went through a phase of sort of trying to be a bit more handy and you know getting tools and bits of wood and being a bit more kind of DT in that sense.

5:22What did you make out of wood? Oh I used to make sort of all sorts of things um you know little houses and um shelves and all sorts of things. That's That's quite impressive. Yeah. I definitely didn't do that. Absolutely terrible with a hammer. So tell me about your mum then. Was she around a lot in your childhood or was she very busy working? She was. She was. So she actually gave up her business just after I was born. Okay. So she was around all of my childhood. And, yeah, you know, kind of one of my real memories as a child is going to antique fairs with her. I remember going around and, you know, she used to buy up, she's always loved chintz and certain types of rugs.

6:11And I remember going around, you know, these kind of sports halls in kind of Sussex where there'd be weekend antique markets and stuff, you know, which is now something that I love doing. And we quite often go together to various antique fairs and flea markets. Nice. and I mean it seems to me that because my wife Faye grew up in the countryside as well that there's something about the value of uh sort of boredom as well I see that my own kids because we live in the country as well but looking back on it do you think that that was quite a good thing for you that that boredom element I mean is that the right word even for you yeah I think it was you know at the time I probably couldn't put my finger on it but yes it's that it's that you you know, expanse of time.

7:01You know, I look at my own children now bringing them up in a city and, you know, they kind of constantly want to be entertained or go out and do things. It's harder for them to occupy themselves at home here. And, you know, you become inventive. And, you know, whether that was collecting lavender and, you know, making fake potions and trying to sell scent and you know that that just being and and that sense of time you have to fill you you do have to be inventive I think yeah so tell us about the house because it was a deer keeper's cottage yeah it was an old lodge where my parents still live today and very very low ceilings and lots of beams um a kind of bit of a rabbit warren with you know lots of little rooms um but you know it's it's such a feeling of home and you know it's got wonderful garden with kind of you know the old outside loo you know still exists which is just a shed and um yeah it really is you know particularly in the summer I was there over the summer with the apple trees and it really just a wonderful place you know filled with so much chintz and prints yeah so so they're still there that's amazing so how long have they lived there for they've probably been there about 45 years that's amazing that's very rare isn't it yeah um so how does it feel for you going back there now then you know it's wonderful and you know my kids love going there um you know it's not too far from london so we do go quite a bit um Um, but it's, you know, I, my mother has changed rooms since I lived there.

8:50Um, she's also quite like me and quite ruthless at getting rid of things. She's not, she doesn't hold on to things. So it's not like my old bedroom exists as it did when I lived there, but it's, it's wonderful. And I, you know, it holds so many memories, but it's, and while I can sort of recognize where a lot of my creativity has come from it's a very different style to how i are what i project you know i i now have this feeling the room we're sitting in here that is an extension in my home you know i really wanted this sense of of having a bit of scale and light and space okay which you know in the cottage there were very small windows and a lot of low ceilings that's really interesting so in some way you're reacting against that yeah that is interesting um tell me about your dad then so my dad um he worked in in property and you know I loved going to sites with him I remember sometimes when he'd he'd exchange on a block of flats and you know it needed renovation I used to love going with him it was also you know growing up with changing rooms I was you know all of that it excited me so much um and my dad has always been very entrepreneurial and you know still to this day he's the person that I get second opinions and things at work um and you know he taught me to sort of you know he always had this motto growing up of like if a job's worth doing it's worth doing well and that's something that you know while I feel I used to sort of grunt a lot in my teens about it it's something that I really recognize in myself now I don't see the point in doing something half half done um you know not getting a job done you know I think if you're going to do something you've got to do it finish it put everything away rather than you know yeah um so I think that that and that kind of perseverance of just sort of looking at things slightly in a different way and yeah finding a solution around things I think he taught me a lot in a way okay so it sounds like you're are you quite a sort of independent spirited person is that fair yes yes so so if if I asked you to describe your character when you were young let's say 10 years old or thereabouts um and we were a bit of a fly on the wall what what would you have been like what have you been doing?

11:24I mean, I think, I think the first thing that came to mind was probably being quite stubborn. Um, you know, I, I'm very instinctual about stuff, um, which, you know, it's, it's, it's a great skill to have when you're designing and you're having to sign off stuff. I really know if something's going to work or not. Um, but as a child and, you know, as, as I was the youngest by a long way, I sort of was around a lot of adults. I often would be taken, you know, my parents went to dinner parties and I'd be taken along and, you know, watch telly in the other room. And I'd always be, or I'd stay up and have dinner on holiday with my parents.

12:03You know, I wouldn't be put to bed. I was treated like an older child, I guess. So I always had this sort of, you know, I had such a wonderful childhood, but I always just wanted to be older. I wanted that independence, as he said. So very early on, you know, at school, I would, I remember very clearly, I set up a jewelry business selling Bricardi Breezer caps and making them into earrings. So I sold those three pounds a pop. You know, I've always had that spirit of wanting to earn money and whether that was clearing out my parents' garage and doing a car boot sale. So, you know, in my holidays, maybe from the age of 15 or so, on my school holidays, I'd go and hand out leaflets, flyers, do, you know, work wherever I could.

12:55I always, I was never very good at sitting still. And I just wanted that idea of, you know, obviously the financial independence of being able to earn a bit of money, but it was more just like I got a glimpse of this bigger world that existed and I wanted to be there. What was the thrill there for you? Was it, do you get excited by taking something like a Bacardi Breezer bottle cap and monetizing it? Is it the idea of making something more valuable that gets you going or what is it about that process that you like? that's a good question I I think it's you know seeing an opportunity and being able to monetize it as you say um but also sharing something that you know at the time let me tell you they were a big hit I can imagine you know it's I think it's seeing that opportunity and and kind of wanting to share it um you know with that vision um and if I look at that you know fast forward however many years to when I first designed my scallop lampshade you know I I came across something where I hadn't seen lampshades created in this way and I spun it on its head and you know I wanted to share that yeah it makes a lot of sense though actually with your mum having a shop and then your dad's trading property you're kind of bringing those instincts together aren't you actually yeah so it makes that makes a lot of sense and I think it's also just you know I had a great social group at school I love school you know I wasn't shy to partying you know I I had a great time being a kid but I just saw this wider world that existed of being around older people and that felt much more exciting to me you know by the time I'd sort of you know I've particularly my kind of early 20s where I'd already decided I didn't want to go to university I wanted to start working like I've always wanted to get out into that world and seize that opportunity so I left school and straight away I got a place at Camberwell Art School I did a foundation course and I did a year there even even that I found it was quite conventional in a sense that we were kind of there wasn't that much structure um but I enjoyed it I found you know it was my first time being in London just 18 in London going down to Camberwell you know back then it was you know it was great and I met such an interesting group of people who are still really great friends to this today to this day um but and I got a place to to go on to um um art school for you know three three more years in London and at that time I'd been doing a lot of work on the side you know some paid some more work experience but I literally said yes to everything stylists um shoots artists like helping in studios and at that time I was offered a job working for a stylist and it just felt like that was what I wanted to do and I went for it and then I I got a job soon after working at Russian Vogue which is based in London it was amazing person at the time Anna Harvey was running that department um so there were quite a few of the international Vogues in in the building behind Vogue house and I worked there and then I I sort of jumped around I worked then at a magazine called Wonderland magazine and sort of climbed up the ladder there and then I was offered a job well a job became available working for Venetia Scott the photographer and stylist and at that time working in fashion I realized I really wanted to step aside from the styling and look what options there were in photography but traditionally photography assistants are male because you know it's a lot of heavy load and moving the equipment and very few photography assistants were females but with Venetia she worked you know her background was in styling and she had shoots peppered in but she had a lighting assistant who came along so it was literally the dream job and I got the job and I worked there I think for four years in total and really those years with Venetia were like the best training I've ever had you know they were so inspirational to well you know what what I do today um Venetia has a very particular eye and worked you know if we were just us two day to day um I'd go into the darkroom with her we'd look at the coloring on prints down to location scouting um you know going to the prop houses and you know we worked on American Vogue shoots you know in all over the world massive campaigns and it was it was such an eye-opener um and really you know my my work ethic really came into its own there because I was suddenly surrounded by people that it was like this this energy that suddenly I'd kind of been wanting and looking for yeah the word energy is is a good one isn't it you you clearly have a lot of energy don't you I do I'm um I'm definitely in a morning person I wake up with you know and if I wake up early in the morning I you know I can't go back to sleep because my mind is and then definitely towards the end of the day my my energy levels I'm not you know I can't knock out a you know a pitch in the evening I'm not one of those night owls I get that I yeah I think a lot of us will feel that way as well so okay so so what what what does Matilda look like then when you when your kind of batteries are running out what happens in the evening I quite like um sort of slow evenings you know I think I really like to kind of set the house in a certain way I have I like to have loads of the lights really dim with just a few lamps on and candles it's really important for me that why is that when you walk into a room in the evening and it's bright light it feels really your sort of circadian rhythm it feels like completely off but also i think it's it's that leaning into winding down for the evening um i've got quite into sort of rituals in a way and i like that idea of you know how dawn brings a whole new perspective you know you can have a really rather than writing off a whole week you know you can have a bad day and go to bed and you can wake up and you know the sun still comes up every morning and I really think you can lean into that and look at you know each day is a new fresh opportunity to do something that's very optimistic yeah is that another way word you would use for yourself yeah I mean my my going going back to my dad he is eternally optimistic um to to you know to sometimes to an extent where you're like that that you know that that you've killed it that's too much but I think you know I think you know with where I am today with work I think you do have to have that optimism and I think running a company and a team you know you have you have to had that that positivity so do you sometimes have to sort of like fake it till you make it on that front you know if you wake up and you're not really feeling it but you've got to go and be positive in front of your team right I think so yeah and I think I think there's a lot you know in your mindset anyway where you can reframe how you feel you know it's easy to wallow in something um and you know suddenly when you look at your problem compared to the expanse of the universe you know suddenly yeah it's easy to worry and I'm prone to worrying so I've been you know really trying to spend time looking at that okay so what do you do about that then I've been doing um quite a lot of breath work and and and just you know looking at the bigger picture and it's you know I've been able to reframe it how I how I look at it because you know it is possible to worry about everything and it can take over your life so I think you know it's all in your mindset and you can reset yourself quite easily by doing you know a bit of breath work do you do that I do yeah so what does that look like where will you do it and how will you do it so I I work with with a friend of mine who's a breathwork coach um and my husband actually got me into it and he will come you know maybe once a month and we'll do more of a larger breathwork session one-on-one um which can be have you ever done it never i love the sound of it you you you work through your body and you know you do this you do this mouth breath which is unnatural for the body So suddenly you can bring so much, so, so much comes to mind, to thought.

22:29And, you know, your body, you can start sweating, you start shivering, your body sort of, it resets it almost. So that's really interesting as a sort of one-off. But then, you know, just, just considering your, your breath throughout the day. And, you know, if there is something that's, you know, been a bit triggering, you know, you can sit for even a minute. and just do a box breath or just follow your breath. And it does really reset you, I think. So if someone doesn't know what a box breath is, what is that? So box breath is, if you imagine, so you're breathing in, you're holding it, you're breathing out and you're holding it.

23:10And each of those four things are the same amount of time, are they? Exactly. So that could be four, you know, you could breathe in for four, hold it for four, breathe out for four, or that could be more increased, that could be for six yeah but if you imagine it it's the the square going around yeah i love that actually that you do that with a with a friend that's a really nice thing to do so one of those sessions how long will that be how long are you breathing for it can sometimes be you know about an hour and a half because you know you'll sort of settle to begin with um you'll do maybe the intense breath work for 15 minutes 20 minutes um and then you'll you know which you'll be sitting up for and then you'll lie down and you'll do more of a sort of slower which it which is that's when it feels really good it's extraordinary once you've done that sort of breath work you can just hold your breath not breathing in for you know it feels like a massive amount of time and it's this you feel so free um I think it's really powerful it really is isn't it is there anything else that you do on that front to sort of keep you on an even keel I have done a few silent retreats which really interesting um I I kind of lean a lot on eastern medicine and having acupuncture regularly um really I find balance me I I feel I have to feel good in myself so I'm very interested you know invested in what I eat and the supplements I take tell us about what you eat then well I sort of, you know, I eat meat.

24:44I eat, you know, dairy if I'm feeling good, but, you know, as soon as I get the sign of a cold, I'll cut out dairy. And, you know, I don't have a particularly strict diet, but I don't, you know, I try not to eat ultra processed food and a lot of sugar. You know, I try to eat a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables. It's, I see, you know, when I travel, I go to India quite a bit to see our suppliers and I'm eating you know delicious food but I you know I don't eat a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables there and I instantly you know within a few days I can really feel it and suddenly everything gets off kilter I've got a great green powder that I have in water now when I'm in India and you know I've got my crutches and things that I know like I know that I have to take a sleeping pill on a flight if I'm going to be working the next day on a long haul flight because I know that if I don't sleep you know it's it's and I think it's just recognizing those red flags we're all different on this I mean I have my own routines and rituals and things as well and it's a form of controlling your world so that you feel like you have some power over it right especially when you're really busy it feels like things are spinning out of control so for me if I feel too far out of control that manifests itself in anxiety and it's quite it's quite physical anxiety what how does it manifest for you what is it that you feel when you're off kilter what's going on like you're sort of quite a physical anxiety in my body um and you know it's the you know constantly with work you're problem solving you're you know there's there's always a problem and it's there's always a solution and if your mind and you're in the right space you can you can action that quickly you can think clearly and when i'm in these states of feeling overwhelmed you you know that i can't my instinct goes and i can't think clearly in that sense everything just feels a bit more unattainable i think yeah exactly i often think this that if if you're an energy person an anxious person um it comes with it a real downside which is that you can feel overwhelmed like you're describing but there's a really big upside to that which is that anxiety is also a form of fuel so i think with you having your kind of energy you must have a lot of output is as the upside of here um so just tell us a moment about how you got going with your brand mg and co because that's obviously come from this burning desire this kind of selling bottle tops to people this yeah this this this inner energy that you clearly have yeah sort of rewinding so i was i'd been working with venetia scott um and you know really the first five years of my career had been deep in fashion.

27:56You know, I was calling Prada looks from shoots to go on careers and that was the world I knew. And I didn't really know much about the interior world. You know, I'd been immersed in it. My mother has great taste and I'd been to beautiful houses that I'd appreciated. But it never kind of had occurred to me that I may fall into that space and I remember one day going with Venetia as we did to the prop houses in Acton up the road from here and we were trying to find something a particular bedspread that was going to go in a shoot and I remember walking into this warehouse and seeing you know aisles of different colored telephones and you know people from all the film industry go there and I just something inside me just clicked and I realized you know wow like this creativity that I have and I really appreciate it it doesn't just have to be in sort of art or fashion which sort of growing up at school and that was all I sort of really knew as a kind of job opportunity and something really clicked there um and then around that time I decided that my time in that in that job had come to an end and I spent I think it was probably the next year just saying yes to jobs and through the contacts that I'd made in fashion um it was just when sort of tablescaping and events was you know an Instagram was all coming together and I kind of just said yes to jobs I remember Lulu Little at Sohn um got me in and I styled some tables for I think she was doing a series of dinners for for press um and you know I remember going to the portobello market and buying boxes of pomegranates and putting gold leaf on them and sourcing plates and using her fabrics as a tablecloth and sort of I just started playing around in this world and you know I'm really grateful to these people who gave me you know these lucky breaks um Penelope Chilvers the shoe designer gave me sort of you know the contract to do her windows and both her shops you know every quarter and then the the events were kind of scaling up a bit and suddenly you know I I said yes to a few weddings and these slightly bigger events which I sort of had gone down this route and you know they were great and they look beautiful and I love the process of pulling people together but I suddenly was like you know hang on this this production world this I've gone too far down this road but I did realize along the way that I loved the process of being given you know the sewn fabric and making them into some fab some napkins for the table and I love this process of creating something and finding the supplier and having an idea that you draw on paper and ta-da the product's there um and around that time I moved in with my boyfriend my now husband who which was the first person that I'd lived with other than girlfriends and you know I I wanted to sort of make his bachelor pad a bit more feminine and so I sort of was looking around and on the market trying to trying to see what I could buy and you know I was used to go to Kempton market a lot which I still do buying lamps and old lamps that I get rewired but I couldn't find a lampshade on the market that you know at that time was in my price bracket so I sort of would stick different braids on fabrics and I realized there was a complete gap in the market and also at that time I questioned why every lampshade I was looking at had this straight bottom okay why you know why does it have to be that way why could it not have a scallop or a different shape and so I set about quite literally typing in lampshade supplier to Google and called every single supplier and got to page three and a half and came across what is still our lampshade supplier today, who agreed to make a sample.

32:06What did you say? What were you asking them to do? I'd made a, to make a lampshade with a scallop bottom. Simple as that. It was as simple as that, but traditionally a lampshade would have a wire top and a wire base. And so with this construction, it couldn't have a wire base. So most of the people said, who are you? No, phone down. But you know, it was that persistence and I kept going because I believed in it. And yeah, you know, I, God knows what that first email was. I think I, I probably, you know, drew on a bar on a bit of paper, a picture, you know, probably six months later, the first sample came and it was just when Instagram was beginning.

32:45And I felt, you know, it was, it was a great time then because you could gain traction quite quickly, which you can't now. and I think I probably ordered 20 of those lampshades I sold them to friends I put the money back in and I ordered 60 and it very slowly was like that but quite quickly it gained momentum um and you know I then branched out and did a few different colors and different sizes and you know I got my first office I used to go I had a little mini and I used to pack up the lampshades every day to go to the post office on Goldwyn Road. And I could only fit probably about six of the boxes in my mini.

33:25So I had to do multiple trips to the post office every day to drop off the orders. But, you know, almost ignorance is bliss in a way. I didn't know what I was doing, but I knew in my heart what I was doing. I knew how to get there, even though it was maybe a different way to what on what's on paper um and so you know I kind of winged it for those first few years and and brought in new products um and then it was really you know in 2020 um with the lockdown that the business kind of suddenly it gained a bit more traction okay you talked about Instagram there do you think would it have been possible without Instagram it was you know i'd like to say yes um you know you look at brands prior to that you know back in the 90s you know 80s you know it word gets around i think it would have gathered momentum at a slower pace okay um you know i think i i like to show things through images and i really enjoyed the process of styling the lampshades in my in my flat at the time and showing them in different ways and it was a really great visual tool to to sell the product yeah I'm sorry to interrupt but you just made me think so obviously you know we've I think we all feel like a lot of us feel like we've got to know you a little bit through Instagram because you're not afraid of sharing your world in that arena um I'm always sort of intrigued by that how in terms of how how comfortable is that for you or do you see it as kind of something that you have to do to get where you need to want to get to with the business yeah I mean it's it's a good question it's it's never been you know I think because the way that the brand was set up and you know there wasn't a business plan there wasn't a pod of funds from an investor it's always been little by little that I guess Instagram kind of became a crutch in a way um and it was I you know we still we don't have a separate brand Instagram and a personal Instagram and it's just you know my personal Instagram almost became the brand Instagram.

35:52So I think, you know, it's a great way to be able to show things to our customer base, you know, our customer base, which is, you know, very far reach, you know, to people in Saudi Arabia or the East Coast of America, you know who wouldn't have fallen upon me had I been selling my lampshades on a market stall you know with something that's very visual I think images are very powerful and and you can show them in your home I do find the you know and I think my style translates you know my background initially was in fashion and now it's in interiors so I love getting dressed I love buying vintage clothes you know my style very much spans across fashion and interiors so I'm happy to share a certain amount but you know and I've noticed recently as the brand has maybe grown up a little bit that I'm a bit more reluctant to share as much as I used to okay um you know and I think it's constantly evolving and changing isn't it and it's just recognizing that yeah yeah I know this is a very direct question but people don't often ask this but can I ask you about money because the reality of being a small business founder and owner is that it's not always easy on that front does what you do make money I mean that's a question really yeah well yeah I you know and I think it's a great point to bring up because I think think people don't talk about money and I'm really lucky I've got um I've got a group of girlfriends actually that we're four of us together um and we live all over London and we probably I see them more than my friends that live around here because we see each other we have a dinner every two months and and they work within this space and in fashion and we're so open about money and you know separate to the brand for the moment but you know if if a job comes in on a partnership or something different we're so direct how much you know how much did this brand pay for this like and we all are very open about it and i think it is really important to talk about money because you need to understand you know particularly with partnerships and on that sense you know what what the what the level is if someone's offering you money and how that sits because I think one's worth is really important.

38:27Going on to the brand, yes, we, you know, we're in a really lucky position where we have been profitable since day one. And I take a salary. It's always been really important for me to be profitable. We've been very considered in our growth. um you know we we currently are 10 people full-time in the office three years ago I think we were four people and initially you know it was me and a couple of part-time staff so it's always I think I think because it as going back to those first 20 lampshades and that was the money that was put in that is the you know that is the initial pot that sits in our bank today but you know that's obviously has grown it hasn't been anyone else's money so I've always been very careful of it and very considered um and you know I I like to think that all of my team are on on very you know healthy salaries that can support them you know the way that they live and you know justifies their skills and you know it's always been that has been more important than the the bigger picture and you know I'm in it for the I'm the long run yeah it's it's the slow and steady race yeah slow and steady is good I think refining as you go along learning what works and what doesn't but I think it's really important to talk about it and it should be a topic that people talk about more and in a more open way yeah even people's salaries and and there's somehow this i i think in america they're a lot more open about it it's quite a british thing yeah to you know or or even working with with people creatives you know people skirt around talking about the fee and and busy selling the creative bits and it should be more up front i think yeah I mean, the reality is in this environment, it's extremely difficult for every small business and larger businesses as well, of course.

40:41But I think that's not said enough, really. You know, everybody is finding it difficult. Yeah. And that's okay. It's okay to say that. Yeah. But I think it's great that, you know, that's exactly the model that we employed with the Modern House, to be honest. It was just very, very slow organic growth at first. And then after a while, it feels like if you hit a seam, then you can roll with that, but you can't run before you can walk, I think. Completely. Yeah. We, we sort of use the analogy of, you know, the tree putting down the roots and, you know, really building. I think you've got to have such a clear idea of your foundation and, you know, we, the brands, you know, not pivoted, but the direction that we've gone on, you know, when I when it was more when I didn't have a supplier base and I was finding the suppliers you know we ended up making a lot of pottery because when I was in holiday in Puglia I came across a great supplier um but you know as we build out the team and I've got staff that have you know great knowledge we've really been able to deliver on what we want to do which is now a lot of hardware and lighting um and we're much clearer on that direction um and yeah i i think there's it's kind of glamorized in a way this idea of overnight growth yes but you know to me while i'm not an academic you know it's instinctual looking at the books and and seeing it doesn't feel comfortable for me to to go beyond our means yeah exactly um let's talk about this place yes you're a very beautiful home that um I feel like you know some of us have seen online here and there and I think it's really interesting to be in here because of course the reality is always slightly different to what you see on a screen actually and so it's been I've really enjoyed um feeling the volumes of the spaces and the materials you've got in here and the colors I think it's a very very elegant beautiful place and I've actually really enjoyed looking around so thank you for that um what was it like when you got here and what's the kind of origin story of how you ended up here well firstly thank you that's very flattering coming from you and all the homes that you've been in um so this home was it was actually quite a funny story I was looking to move out I'd sort of spent most of my 20s living around um Portobello Notting Hill and I was looking to move to this area wanting more space um and I had been looking at different places online and I came and I was walking around one Saturday morning and I saw um a sign outside here for sale I hadn't seen this house online um and I knocked on the door and brazen yeah and um early in the morning because i'm an early bud and um the the gentleman who lived here came to the door in his dressing gown and i was like hi i'm just looking around anyway he let he he you know we had a a private tour of the house was he the owner or the tenant the owner he was the owner and he'd lived here for 35 years um him and his wife both worked in the theater and the corridors down there were lined with every poster of every production they put on um and it was amazing because you know it it had such character um you know it hadn't had fake cornices put in you know it really had that it hadn't been touched so and it just i i really believe in in the feel of a space i don't know if you do but i i walked in and it just felt kind of interesting and it had a good feeling um the garden the garden you know it had it has this big wall of ivy so you it's quite you're not very overlooked which i really like um and i sort of just had a real gut feeling on it that it it had this great potential a reminder that you can watch my house tour with matilda over on patreon she explains why her kitchen worktops are much higher than usual, why her extension has three pairs of French doors into the garden instead of the usual bifold doors, and how she's brought the beachside spirit of the Hamptons to a busy London street.

45:12Head to patreon.com slash homing with Matt to take a look. And so what was the kind of first step? You know, if you're approaching a project, what do you think like what is it I want to conjure a feeling or I start with a particular color or a fabric or a you know what is it we were quite limited by budget so that that you know meant there were certain constraints um I think it was first working out the layout and the kitchen was always in the front of the house which is quite rare in a terraced house um but I I love the idea of in here we were always gonna um you know extend the room a little bit I love the idea of having this pitch ceiling and it being a really light space so once we'd sort of cemented that that was going to be the layout it was really maximizing the space to the best of its use and so we did quite a quite a quick initial build building out this room and you know putting it putting a bit of rewiring and plumbing.

46:15And then, you know, it really was over, you know, it's been a slow evolution here. You know, even in this room, I've just had that ottoman in here with that fabric. And I feel that is the piece that's been missing. You know, the acid yellow, suddenly that's what's missing in this room. I think I mentioned earlier this idea of sort of cooking and adding in, thinking about the sweet and the spice and you know it needs that balance of room as the acid you know I do think homes constantly evolve and um we've done you know we we did a little bit of a reconfigure when you know we moved in here with no children and I now have two kids two kids two and five and you know I was completely clueless like I I had no idea how much mess and chaos and how much stuff kids come with so we then did a bit of a reconfigure on the first floor we knocked out two tiny tiny rooms that weren't very useful and sort of opened up the landing to make it a sort of playroom um and and that was you know we did that maybe two years after the initial build um but yeah in response to I guess your question was you know the palette that the colors on the walls I kind of lean towards more neutral colors I like to think of the canvas as quite a neutral canvas and then it means it can have layers of you know I'm not stuck in a particular era I'm not afraid to put a sort of Ikea stool next to a design hero from the 50s and you know vice versa of putting a kind of Colfax fabric with something that's much more modern um I just really believe you lean into what you love and it will come together but I think having that natural that sort of neutral canvas really helps yeah so where do you get most of your stuff from because it seems a real mix right but is a lot of it coming from fairs and markets and ebay and it sort of is but it's because you know i just think from a you know it's very cost effective certainly to find something that has personality in the quality if you can't afford the high end it's far better to find something that's second hand and to recover it or you know recondition it than getting something from a high street you know supplier that's not very well made um but you know that said it's you know there's a bit of everything in this home I I love you know I like to fall upon pieces and and I like that story that goes with it um so I'm not while I'm a very impatient person in the home I'm I'm quite happy to wait to find the perfect piece okay that's interesting um I'm not I'm not that fuss that the home isn't perfect and I think I've really lent into that since having small kids and realizing that you know if if you're going to have a nice fabric on a sofa and they spill orange juice on it like so be it like you can't you can't be precious about things and the home you know I'm never going to have really plump cushions in this house but you were saying earlier that the kind of freestanding work table that you had in the kitchen yes broke right yes what happened to it it's the kitchen is underneath my bedroom and so my husband sometimes on the weekends would give gives the kids breakfast in here so they can watch telly yeah I know it's a bit sloppy um and so he'd bring he brings it in for them and they love to sit behind here with their high chairs having their cereal watching the tv so on one of its transportations the marvel cracked in half oh no but but that's the sort of thing that happens isn't it and and it's interesting that you're just happy to live with that gap for a while you know you're having something made but it's you know I think it's completely I you know I feel you know friends come to me and you know they've moved they've just moved in somewhere and they're like oh but when coming over but it's not completely done and you know and then they've sort of rush bought quite an expensive bit of furniture that doesn't really work and then they don't like it and you know it it's quite hard to rehouse furniture in that sense if it's a new piece you know it's it's big and bulky and it you know it's hard to resell it's not like a piece of clothing where if you made a bit of a mistake on a dress that you're not going to wear lots it lives in your cupboard i do you know what i mean yeah where do you stand on clutter while i i love a lot of things i'm i don't like a lot of stuff if i know that sort of contradicts itself but I don't like lots of clutter.

51:09Pieces have to have a purpose. They've got to have a use. And, you know, I think, I think as far as we go is, you know, the shells we collect on holidays with my kids and the pebbles, you know, if they're all grouped together in a bowl that, you know, that, that works, but I'm definitely not going to be someone that has sort of pieces of china lined up. I think they've got to be concise and they've got to have a use. and I like clear surfaces. Okay. You know, as I've got older and, you know, particularly since becoming a mom and probably having quite a busy life, I've become very organized, which is a bit of a bone of contention with my husband who's quite disorganized.

51:55You know, I really believe you can learn to be organized and I think it's something you can train yourself to do. Go on, how do you do that? Well, I think it's, you know, just practice. And, you know, there's certain aids you have. And I think this idea of objects having a home, I love the idea of like the junk drawer in one's kitchen. You know, the drawer where you have the plasters, the sun green, the scissors, you know, that idea of, you know, it can be messy in there, but everything lives in there rather than on top of a surface. Yeah, and you know that's where the plasters are. Yeah, exactly.

52:32Exactly. I like to know where things live. I think it feels really good when you're efficient, you know? Yeah, yeah. So if I was to come in here and, I don't know, like shift a few things around on your mantelpiece, would you notice that? Probably not because I think it was my kids. But no. Okay, so it's not that level, i.e. it's not that everything has to be set in the right position. No, sorry. Yes, I would, yeah. I think it's more, I don't mind if things are out of joint aesthetically, but I like to know that, you know, in the top drawer of my desk, I've got the pen that I like to write with.

53:13Yeah. Okay. Got it. So tell me about Tom, your husband. How did you guys meet? We met through his brother, actually. Okay. um and yeah it was it was quite a quick instant I think we were together for about a year when we got engaged in hindsight I was very young how old were you then I was 26 when I got married okay that's quite young these days but then we had we had you know uh maybe five years without kids um so it was interesting you know if we we've had we've got a great dynamic and but yeah we were we were young for sure yeah but we sort of almost carried on almost dating in those early years of being married got it yeah okay what is it about the two of you that that works character wise i think he you know really lets me be who i am and you know i'm quite expressive and and have my certain ways and he kind of really lets me flourish in that way um he's much more chilled than me and much more calm so i think i think you kind of need that balance that sounds good that sounds good so applying that to your home then does he have an opinion on it or does he just leave it to you he's no he lets me sort of he does have certain opinions and actually you know I'm quite particular in certain ways um in this room he particularly wanted to put in this porthole window which at the time I couldn't visualize and I didn't understand why and actually I think it's one of the elements that makes this room.

54:56And we built the fridge in our kitchen together. I mean, I say together. I gave some initial ideas and he really did that. So, you know, he's a big, a very important clog in the design. But yeah, sort of lets me develop the ideas, I guess. But in every household, right, there's certain things that wind us up. okay what what does he get out of interest what does he get irritated by or wound up by i mean i i he probably gets because he does all the cooking yeah um and it's probably more me because he's quite messy you know i always think there's one person who's messier than the other okay so so you're saying that you spend a lot of time clearing up after him yes yes putting the pens back in those drawers okay okay sounds symbiotic um And then you've got two children.

55:52So you've got Domino, who's five, and August, who's two. What's that been like for you, being a mum? Because it's obviously a seismic shift for all of us. But what's it been like for you? It's, you know, it's the most wonderful thing that happened to me. I, you know, I love being a mother so much. It's, you know, my daughter came into the world right in the peak of the first lockdown. just as my business was sort of gaining a bit of momentum, you know. So, you know, I've kind of only ever known juggling work and motherhood. With my second, with my second, with my little boy, I chose to take a bit more time off on maternity leave because I felt I missed it the first time around.

56:47But I actually, I really miss work. And I found, you know, while I may complain that I'm spinning plates doing both, I think I need one to complement the other. I think I'm a better mother when I've been stimulated and I've had a really productive day at work. I feel I can give more to my kids than, you know, the days when I was on maternity leave. And, you know, they felt quite long. I didn't feel I had that sense of purpose. Yeah. You know, and it's amazing. Like I've just started, my daughter, you know, comes into my office here and there in half terms. And, you know, it's so amazing seeing her come in and she'll play with the 3D printer and pick up prototypes.

57:38And, you know, I think it's amazing to see that example. And, you know, it's wonderful seeing, you know, as the kids get a little bit older, you see how their imagination works you know she'll stay up she's such night out she quite literally goes to bed when I go to bed because I go to bed really early and she'll be you know will have set up an entire shop and you know really creative imagination what time do you go to bed then maybe 9 30 yeah yeah has that changed as you've got older yeah definitely definitely But, you know, peppered in with, you know, dinners and, you know, they'll stay up late.

58:18But if I'm at home, I like to get an early night. And so you had both kids at home, didn't you? Yeah. Home births. Yeah. For anyone listening who's thinking about that, do you advocate that idea? I thought it was, I had the most positive experiences with having both home births of my, both my kids born at home. um you know I'm it was something I was always quite interested to explore but certainly not with it with my first child but she was born in early May of 2020 and I kind of realized that you know and I had some amazing support around me who gave me the confidence that actually this would be you know my one of the best options I could have you know at that time you weren't allowed any any companion you weren't allowed anyone in the hospital um whereas if I was at home I'd have the team of people um my husband and you know it really shows like the home is such a safe place for me I'd spent you know the however many months before of lockdown here um and it feels you know it had it was my safe space and it felt like the place that I wanted to welcome in my kids you know I had the support of the medical teams that were here I knew that the hospital was 15 minutes away if I needed to go there um and yeah it was really wonderful my my my daughter was born in the sitting room my son in my bedroom and I love the idea that the home can be this starting point to a new life and the backdrop to those really really important life experiences completely I think western medicine is completely amazing as and when you need it but um you know if I go for a checkup or a doctor's appointment and I have the bright lights and all of that instantly I'm sort of needing to do my breath work and you know instantly it kind of throws me so you know those simple comforts and i think it's you know those simple things you you can adjust if you have time like if you're in a hotel room i often move things around it's interesting from doing this podcast i was contacted by a consultant neurologist and he said wouldn't it be interesting to see if good design can have an impact on people's experiences when they're recovering from brain injury or brain surgery so we're going to try and do that piece of work together which i think would be really exciting but what do you feel about being sensitive to environments and what environments do you find hard to be in because they kind of trigger you in that way i mean hospitals are an obvious one are there any other places where you find similar things well firstly i think that's amazing yeah i think you know there's you know we've we've i know that there's like certain recovery centers where as a brand we've donated certain products for for people and i think at 100 i am sure that your surroundings can help aid you know certainly the emotional recovery yeah i think that's amazing um in terms of other spaces i feel i find airports quite overwhelming yeah me too um there's just always something about them that is fraught yeah you know and and again that's that's an interesting one i wonder i wonder why you know that you know they they could be toned down in a certain way couldn't they well it's funny you say that because i was thinking that on the tube on the way here this morning uh and i was thinking about heathrow airport so terminal five which i'm sure you would have traveled through i actually think despite being a really big terminal is one of the most humane ones there is and i think actually the acoustic design in there is excellent it's amazing that in that huge space it's not a very resonant sound and you don't feel that sense of the sound crashing off hard surfaces and sort of overwhelming you like a wave whereas i think there are many other airports gatwick etc etc that just feel a lot less humane and i think it's it's the combination of hard surfaces yeah you know really not very nice artificial lighting completely often not being able to see out of a window yeah because that's i think that's very important to me it's so underrated that just give us a window to be able to look out of completely completely you know yeah um but um yeah when i was talking to chris packham he said that supermarkets he finds really hard which i was interested by and he said for him a lot of it's to do with smell so if he walks into a supermarket he gets kind of like fish and meat and dairy and everything in one go and his senses kind of say well that's not all supposed to go together yes yeah yeah yeah so this word identity I've written down here because for you it seems to me that your home it's a home and you share it with your husband and your two kids but it's also kind of a calling card and it's part of your identity so how how do you is that is that a fair statement and sort of How do you feel about that?

1:03:55Yes, I think it is. You know, it's my visual identity. Yeah. And, you know, as I referred to earlier, I think it's in the same way as my visual identity with the way that I choose to dress. Yeah. I kind of often compare styling a room in the same way as getting dressed. You know, I lean on a lot of basics with what I wear. I love denim and like a white t-shirt let's say on a normal day but I have so many handbags and sunglasses and shoes and you know it's it's the layers and and that's what I feel like in the home is within my home there's a lot of layers but actually if you take them away it's quite a simple canvas yeah um and i think it's that idea of you know that identity can evolve and and change and you know in the way that you know i lived here for a year without having kids um and you know while you know it looked the same there were certain things that were different um you know and I think that's in the same way with the way you dress yeah it's really struck me I think sort of spending some time with you today that you're you're someone that you're about momentum and moving forward clearly and you've you've clearly got a lot of energy and you've talked about doing breath work because there's a kind of breathlessness that comes with that type of character right um so I suppose I'm interested just to probe a bit more with you because I think it's I always think it's helpful for other people to understand kind of behind the behind the scenes of the Instagram feed you know when the wheels are kind of coming off what does that look like for you so you know I found my early 20s quite hard

1:06:00I you know I I had a great time you know it was maybe concealed quite a lot by working hard and partying and surrounding myself and being social you know I in hindsight you know I hadn't found my proper home you know I I'm now got my partner and my family and I've got a real reason to put down the roots of my home um but that kind of period of it's always hard I think you're you know whether it's in your teens or early 20s that you know maybe you don't have that maybe I didn't have the confidence that I do today to be who I am you know you're always slightly looking around at what other people are doing and wondering whether what you're doing is the right thing um you know and I think it it kind of goes hand in hand like I I kind of needed to prove myself and I think that's also something that going back to you know finding it hard at school you know maybe I've always had to be busy and work hard to prove myself that while I wasn't getting a hundred out of a hundred in exams, I could prove myself.

1:07:08I can achieve things in a different way on, on a day-to-day level at work. I have built myself a team of incredibly talented people who, you know, each plays such a huge part in my company. I've got an amazing COO who is, you know, the right brain to my left brain, left brain to right brain, you know, a document comes in, I'll open the visual doc, she will open the contract, you know, we're completely different people, but she, we can read each other. And so I think it's building that support system around you that's been invaluable and you know no doubt we would not be here today without the team like they have played such a huge part um so I think in some respects you know it it definitely isn't all glamorous you know probably you know a good you know a handful of times a week there are some big problems at work you know most specifically with production you know I wish people knew you know just how hard it is to produce something you know I think people often think it's it's a very easy process and you know it's an easy job you know there's so much hand-holding and so much disappointment so many letdowns um delivery windows missed quality control you know there's a lot of things and that can be really disappointing uh particularly when as a team you're so efficient but i think you also have to realize that a lot of it is out of your hands and you know as long as you know every problem is also solvable and it's just getting to that that's that solution but you know it's you know i i find recently you know certainly in the last few years that the creativity window of my day has really been swallowed up yeah um and it's trying to find those pockets still and I try to sort of not stress too much about it and realize that actually often it's when I'm sitting on the tube that an idea comes I don't necessarily have to be sitting with a sketch book in front of me in a pen because you know when I think that I'm going to be researching something one day a problem comes up that we need to sort the future of home um you have been here a while now do you do you see yourself being here forever or do you think there's another chapter for home no definitely definitely I don't see myself being here forever but I think the next question is how long will I be here for um and it's a question that's sort of going round and round in my head I grew up in the countryside as did my husband um and that pull is really um you know strong however you know on on the contrary you know my kids are thriving in London it's different to to what I know what I knew growing up but you know they have a great life I get to drop them at school and I can cycle to my office in 10 minutes um you know everything is a lot more manageable here so I don't know whenever I'm in a new place out of London I'm always looking at what's around um and so but you know it's it's that idea of evolving even the next place I'm in I don't think I could ever say this is my forever home oh really no I I think it's too final yeah it's too final and I like the idea of you know maybe i'd live abroad for a few years i don't know where would you if you could pick a country which one would it be i think it would have to be quite close to home italy i love so much yes um i i could see myself in ibiza okay um i think there's a good great expat community there um but you know like this is all a this is all sort of 3 a.m worries right you know right now I'm in the office four days a week you know my husband needs to he's on different building sites every day so it's it's a one day but I think there's definitely a few different places ahead and you know it's it's back to this idea of evolving you know it would be the next place and you know after our kids leave home you know somewhere different the final question I always Ask Everyone, which is, I think, a really enlightening one because this word home has so many different meanings and connotations, I think, from the physical structure that you inhabit to the community that you're a part of to the feeling within yourself.

1:12:07That word home, I think, has multiple meanings to it. So if I was to ask you to summarize the word home and what that word means to you, what would you say? What really comes to mind is love. Okay. You know, it's a space that is warming. It's a space that brings people together. You know, it loves throughout in a way. You know, it sees every emotion. You know, it sees everything. and we also are also great you know so grateful to have a roof over our head and I think it's it's whatever it is it's it's that place that you know it's in your heart I think. So do you do you think about home when you're not here?