Any Archway diehards may remember the days of our old shop/design studio (down Junction Road, currently La Belle Vie) and Map's first manufacturing manifestation. We hand-made decorated china and glass for prestigious stores around the world. It was a business we progressed into what is now our renowned retail space, but it's a business we feel fondly nostalgic about!
I stumbled upon Alijoe Designs in the wonderful world of Instagram. I felt like I had fallen back through time, down an Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole! Here is a lady whose influences are very obviously close to our own, her designs are quirky, witty and even surreal. She has just launched a range called 'Desserts are on me'.
In addition she creates vintage pieces, she resurrects old and dusty china plates by transforming them with quirky makeovers. Often surreal, sometimes kitsch and always witty, the original, whimsical designs give a sought after contemporary twist to the classic, decorative plate often working in pairs - see below 'wine on tap' and 'spider to catch a fly' these items are guaranteed to be a talking point and to raise a smile when displayed on a wall.
We're really thrilled to be one of Alijoe's first stockists. We love supporting local Artists plus her designs are the centre piece of our new season 'Fornescetti inspired' collection including this brand new range from Chase and Wonder.
A touching post script to this story - we obviously waxed lyrical to Debbie about the old days and we described some of our signature designs that had made our name.....(way back in about 1995). A few weeks later she emailed me - "I was clearing out a cupboard a few weeks ago and coincidentally came across these two plates - I knew they were familiar when you talked about them, so clearly we were destined to meet!"
Stylish and surreal -I think these plates still look good more than 22 years since they were made.
