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Business of Home Podcast
Why Nicola Harding started her own brand dedicated to 'quiet hero' pieces
00:50:43
The celebrated English interior designer shares the story of her career. Her husband and business partner, Andy Harding, also joins the show to talk about their brand, Nix.
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- [00:04]
Dennis Scully
This is business of Home. I'm your host, Dennis Scully. Every week I'll be speaking with leaders and innovators from all corners of the home industry. My guests this week are Nicola and Andy Harding. Nicola is a London based interior designer whose award winning firm, celebrated for its soulful layered aesthetic, is regularly named as one of Britain's finest. Andy, her husband, is an E Commerce veteran. Experience at House of Fraser and McKinsey. In 2023, the two of them launched a home goods brand, Nick's, dedicated to quality design driven pieces at a reasonable price point. I spoke with the two of them about why Nikola tried aviation and theology before becoming an interior designer, why they wanted to launch their own brand instead of a licensed collection, and why Nick's is coming to America Foreign. This podcast is sponsored by Ernesta. Summertime projects are here. Get your clients ready for backyard gatherings and downtime on the patio with Ernesta's custom sized outdoor rugs. Expertly crafted with plush fade resistant fibers and elevated designs, each rug is made to fit and delivered in as little as two weeks. Join Ernestus exclusive trade program today and let their team of dedicated consultants handle everything from samples to quotes, streamlining your process every step of the way. Apply for membership@ernesta.com BOH and now on with the show. And how long ago was that? When did you all get married?
- [01:51]
Andy Harding
2007.
- [01:52]
Dennis Scully
2007, yeah. Yeah, right. Just before.
- [01:57]
Andy Harding
18 years.
- [01:57]
Nicola Harding
Oh yeah, just before it went south. Right before it went south, but which actually sort of kind of worked out I guess for us. You know, I set up the business in 2008 and I think that difficult times can be actually fantastic windows of opportunity for small businesses because people are looking for value. And I set up thinking it was going to be a garden design business because I just left working with Arnie Maynard, who I'd been with the garden designer been with for five or six years. And we'd done all sorts of incredible projects all over the world. And so I set up my garden design business but had before then been lucky enough to be able to flip a few properties. I'd been at university in Edinburgh studying theology and managed to sort of do a deal with my dad where he would give me the money that he'd sort of saved to help me with rent during the course of my four years doing a master's there. And I used that to help buy a property which didn't have any central heating, hadn't had anything done to it for a very, very long time. And you know, I squeezed a into a cupboard so I could create an extra bedroom. Filled the place full of friends to pay the mortgage and, you know, worked several jobs on the side and, you know, that was the sort of first house that I'd done. I'd done another one when I came to London and then turned that over and friends who had seen these places, you know, asked me then to help me with theirs. And Andy's boss at the time came to our house and she asked me to do her house. And so the business became more and more focused on creating homes and one home project turned into another, turned into another.
- [03:58]
Dennis Scully
And I want to come back to that, but take me back to being at the University of Edinburgh, studying theology and tell me what path you thought you might be on. That obviously took a turn.
- [04:11]
Nicola Harding
Well, hilariously, there were a few different ideas that I pursued and one was I was in the University air Squadron whilst I was at university and I think I was hands down the worst pilot they'd ever had. But I did get to wear really.
- [04:33]
Dennis Scully
Great flying suits, a fabulous uniform, I'm.
- [04:37]
Nicola Harding
Sure, and I had like a helmet with a visor and they do actually like spin their fingers around in circles and go chocks away and it's a beautiful part of the world to go flying. So, you know, lack of skill aside, it was a really magical experience. And so, yes, in my infinite genius, I thought maybe a career in the military would be a good idea and did my pre rcb, was offered a place in the army, thought I might even join the logistics corps, which probably wasn't an obvious fit. So then. And then I also did the milk round at university and I thought about joining Procter and Gamble, but all this time I had various different jobs which included being a podium dancer and working for Red Bull. And in fact, Red Bull, my boss, just came for lunch yesterday and he's been a sort of mentor and a friend ever since. And he encouraged me to think about going into a business where I really wanted to spend time with the people who were in the industry. He pointed out that you spend more time with the people that you than you do with your family or your friends, so make sure they're people who you want to be rubbing up against. And he also saw this flat that I had done in Edinburgh and I'd done set design during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and on the back of that he asked me to do some design for Red Bull and I created this sort of press space to entertain press during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. You know, Red Bull was all about giving you wings and you know, that you. You needed. It was actually a really interesting exercise in learning about brand and marketing. You know, they didn't want anything that was just slapping a sticker on something that wasn't useful. It needed to be something that served a practical purpose, that enabled people to do their job better. And so creating a space for press to do their job was absolutely on message. So I created this and I suppose that was sort of my first foray into it. But then, you know, thinking about, did I go into interior design, which I didn't even know was a thing after university, or was there something related to it? And I just started to rather fall in love with garden design and the world around it. You know, at that time, it was something that wasn't particularly fashionable and it was full of the most bonkers, most passionate people who didn't mind being soaking wet and filthy dirty most of the time. And I think also, you know, an interior might look its best 10 minutes after you leave it, although those generally aren't the sort of homes that grab my attention. But a garden almost definitely does not look its best 10 minutes after you finished working on it. It's 10 years plus. And so you have to recognize the fact that there's something larger at play. And so I think it doesn't attract people who are really egocentric, you know, because, you know, yeah, there's something.
- [08:04]
Dennis Scully
The appreciation for your work will come years after you've gone.
- [08:08]
Nicola Harding
Actually, Mother Nature is bigger hero here and you're a facilitator to let her do her work. And, you know, actually for Holmes, that's kind of how I feel too, is that you're sort of setting the stage for someone else to pick up the reins, make this place their home, breathe, continue to breathe more meaningful life into it, and that's when it becomes something really special.
- [08:35]
Dennis Scully
So I want to come back and continue the conversation. But Andy, I want to bring you in because I'm curious the path that your career is on and hear a little bit about the evolution of what you've done.
- [08:50]
Andy Harding
So I started my career in retail and I joined retail after a very short stint at university. I didn't really get on with academia so much.
- [09:01]
Dennis Scully
I can relate. Yeah.
- [09:05]
Andy Harding
I was very lucky to work with some really incredible people. And back in the early days of E commerce, actually, I started retail in the late 90s, just in the embryonic stage of E commerce. And this idea of real customer centricity, thinking about the customer at the heart of everything, was such a gift to have at the early stages of E Commerce and so I was very lucky. E Commerce was booming. I worked for several enterprise retailers. I had a, had a good stint at House of Fraser after Car from Warehouse, I worked for House of Fraser and I, and I did that for a while and then I, I, I, I did some consulting with McKinsey's for a while. I did an interesting payments business, a buy now, pay later business and, and then Covid hit and things became quite difficult and that business unfortunately didn't work. And when I left that after a couple of years, Nicks and I had a conversation and I think every retailer has this idea of having their own train set, ultimately wanting their own shot, wanting their own store, wanting to do their own thing. And then, and we talked for years about the idea of building a business together and obviously I've been around Nick's interior design business and seeing how incredible that was and the growth of that. And so we started to talk about building a business together. And so I joined in 2022 I think and joined together and started helping a little bit around the commercial side of the interiors, but at the same time writing a business plan to launch Nyx by Nicola Harling, which is our.
- [10:42]
Dennis Scully
Product business and coming to America soon. So. Right, that's terribly exciting but let's, let's get back to starting your business. One of the things that I was, that I was interested in and I think in part because I was thinking about Wowhouse and how Wowhouse is, interestingly it is so closely tied to set design and it really, I mean it's a pop up house. I mean that space doesn't exist in real life.
- [11:11]
Nicola Harding
No, it's a cardboard box.
- [11:12]
Dennis Scully
Right. So in America people are very used to show houses, but they're actually houses, they're homes, they're townhouses or their great big estates. And a bunch of designers come in and they do the rooms at Chelsea Harbour. For wow House a space is created and then you do all of these incredible things in your case and laid tile on the floor which turned out to be all different sizes and was actually quite a production.
- [11:37]
Nicola Harding
Yeah, right, absolutely. No, I mean and warehouse has been, you know, birthed by the Chelsea Harbour. And it's the most extraordinary achievement because yes, in, you know, only four or five years, it's become an institution and everyone comes together. It's this sort of magical opportunity for the design community to work alongside each other. And you know, it's not just the designers whose names you see, but you know, a huge family of Suppliers who all rally and are incredibly generous with their time and materials and expertise, and it creates this incredible Aladdin's cave of ideas and materials. And, yes, I think, you know, it does feel incredibly compelling. You feel like you are in a very solid building and every detail has been thought about and cared for.
- [12:30]
Dennis Scully
Yeah, no, no, it's really remarkable and in such a short period of time. Again, designers in the States are familiar with what they perceive to be very tight timeframes of. It might be several weeks or a month, but, I mean, this was five days. Five days? Five days. It all had to come together. And, I mean, there were real installations that happened and there was no.
- [12:51]
Nicola Harding
And everyone, honestly, you know, you'd think that would spell sort of chaos and tension and all the rest of it.
- [12:58]
Dennis Scully
But people at each other's throats, but it wasn't that way.
- [13:01]
Nicola Harding
We're very, you know, everyone really. Yeah, really supported everyone else and there was a wonderful atmosphere and it was beautifully choreographed. So, I mean, it's an enormous achievement by everyone involved.
- [13:15]
Dennis Scully
Let's go back. So we get married in 2007, we're all excited. 2008, you launch your business. Tell me what you were imagining your business was going to be at the time, and then let's talk about how.
- [13:28]
Nicola Harding
I think I very much imagined that the business was going to be a garden design business. You know, I had thoroughly enjoyed working with Arnie. We had our first child soon after, and I would be, you know, going to meetings, scouring the world for antiques with baby gnomes, and I would sit down in some, you know, brilliant antique dealer's shop, and whilst I was feeding Sam, you know, chats at length with them about, you know, where and why and how they'd sourced what made something better than something else. And it was a wonderful learning time. And I think as the business became more about interiors than it did about gardens, I recognized that I needed to learn a lot quickly. And I thought about, you know, going and studying interior design, but decided that actually the way was to surround myself with the best people I could possibly find and learn from them.
- [14:35]
Dennis Scully
And it sounded like. It sounded like word of mouth in the. In the early days was very much driving your business.
- [14:41]
Nicola Harding
Yes, 100%, you know, like. Yes, it's all been word of mouth and, you know, that's been incredible. I suppose the only downside of word of mouth is that you can end up, you know, in a bit of a sort of echo chamber. People see something that you like and they ask you to work in a similar way. And, you know, I love the challenge of something completely new. You know, I don't see a project as a chance to stamp myself on a place, but rather learn from that place, learn from that person, learn from their collection, learn from the team who are assembled to work on it. But, yes, we've been very lucky to work on extraordinary projects with extraordinary people.
- [15:27]
Dennis Scully
A lot of designers talk to me about how do you have that conversation, say, that's great that you love that project that I did before, but you understand that was someone else's home.
- [15:36]
Nicola Harding
Right.
- [15:36]
Dennis Scully
You understand you won't be living there. Right. And how do you sort of gracefully say, well, let's see what we can do differently together on your home?
- [15:46]
Nicola Harding
Well, I think I see maybe 90% of what I bring to the party is to be a listener, you know, to really, really listen. And I think the kind of first line that someone might say is, you know, I really like what they had. I want that. But then it's like, okay, tell me, why do you want that? Tell me about your house. Tell me about what happens to you about that. Yeah, tell me about what do you want to feel when you come home and, you know, when you wake up on a Saturday morning, how do you want that to feel? You know, quite often you're working with a couple, and quite often they might think they want quite different things, but as you get deeper and deeper, that's when you find the common ground and then start to sort of build it back up and weave these things together to be able to create a home that wraps them in meaning. Meaning that is completely bespoke to them.
- [16:43]
Dennis Scully
And it seems as though in addition to a lot of residential projects, a lot of hospitality and hotel projects presented themselves to you as well.
- [16:52]
Nicola Harding
Well, yes, I think it's a sort of similar story where, you know, one opportunity sort of made way to another. And I didn't have too narrow a fixed idea of what I was looking for, so I was able to see these chances and grab them with both hands, you know, and the sort of, you know, we have been really lucky to win several awards for our hotels. But the irony is, is that, you know, when people come to us, they usually want a hotel that doesn't feel too much like a hotel. You know, I think this is one of the privileges we have is doing this combination of residential work and commercial work. Each can inform the other and sort of cross pollinate each other. So, you know, because we develop close working relationships with, you know, smaller artisans or dealers in our residential work, we're able to understand how they work and how to sort of get the best out of them and draw them into our commercial projects and vice versa. Through our commercial projects, you know, we have, you know, deep relationships with suppliers where we're able to give them, you know, really quite meaty orders and then that enables us to negotiate very good prices with them, which our residential clients then benefit from. So, you know, it really is a very happy marriage which sort of is a win win for everyone involved.
- [18:20]
Dennis Scully
That, that's so interesting. A designer was taking me through his, his space the other day and he was talking about this is how we balance the books. It's a little bit more over here and a little bit less over here and, and how fabulous that the commercial work benefits the residential work and that you're buying in such quantities that, that you can have discounted pricing to, to an extent.
- [18:41]
Nicola Harding
Yeah, exactly. And I think it's, you know, that is what has sort of spawned the opportunity for the next business. You know, the next business is a sort of love child between the, the passion slash obsession with homemaking and the opportunity of batch production that was born out of creating pieces for our hotel projects. You know, the, the obsession with homemaking and the perpetual foraging for all the ingredients that come with it. You know, first sort of showed me needs that we ran into time and time again. For example, say, you know, a floor light that nestled into a chair in such a way that it's easy to read by or it casts a magical glow on upholst rather than a sort of menacing figure that looms over your shoulder, which so many floor lights do. And you know, by foraging for antiques mostly, you know, for years and years and years, you know, I've seen all sorts of details and solutions for how you solve those problems and that's been the sort of jumping off point for the designs for our next collection. And then the hotel projects created the opportunity of marrying, you know, our know how and contacts in the world of making.
- [20:09]
Dennis Scully
So, Andy, and was it the NYX business that finally pulled you in or had you already been immersing yourself in, in Nicola's design business?
- [20:18]
Andy Harding
That's a great question. I'm not quite sure which came first. We, I mean, I definitely have been involved in the business for some time. We've been, you know, as a family business. So the business started in our house. So Nick started working in our house in Shepherd's Bush and grew into, you know, a couple of people joined and that was then a whole floor in the house. And so I was around the business for a long, long, long time. So you couldn't help but be around the business, around it.
- [20:44]
Dennis Scully
Yeah.
- [20:45]
Andy Harding
And I think that, yeah, the conversation started quite, for quite a long time about how, how we might work together. I sort of stepped in and, and started helping with the interior design business a little bit in terms of some of the back office stuff. So some of the more boring, you know, invoice processing and accounting systems and spreadsheets, all that sort of stuff, which is more, I guess, what I'm good at, certainly better I'm better than that than I am at design. And you know, we started, you know, talking about, you know, what retail might look like, what a product range might look like and what a business might look like. You know, it just evolved. It didn't sort of happen instantly. There wasn't a sort of big sort of moment. I think it started and it took, it took a year, at least or two, 18 months to sort of write a business plan, think about how we were going to do it. But because my background is predominantly in E commerce, you know, online and doing a website and having that as opposed to a more traditional start from a showroom point of view, maybe have a website, but not a transactional website, which is certainly more what I see in the U.S. i think we started from, we're going to build a transactional website and actually our showroom in Queen's park came much later. So that's really how it started.
- [22:16]
Dennis Scully
We're taking a quick break to remind you about Ernesta. Immerse your clients in Elevated design with Ernesta's curated collection of custom sized rugs. With unlimited complimentary samples, exclusive trade discounts and personalized support from a dedicated team of consultants, Ernesta makes it easy to explore options and bring your creative vision to life. To apply for membership or learn more, visit ernesta.com boh and now back to the show. So as you say, when you thought about actually making it transactional, what was the biggest consideration in your mind? What was the most important element of what had to be in place to say, yes, we can make this transactional? Rather than create some place for people to come and see it and then have a person take care of actually? Because, I mean, I ask in part because I talk to so many businesses who have shown me a website and who have told me one day what it's going to be and the transaction side of it is not in place yet. And they keep telling me any minute we're going to make this transactional and then Years have passed and I'm having that same conversation.
- [23:36]
Andy Harding
I came from enterprise retail, so I'm working with teams of 200 people. So you've got all the bases covered, all the complexity and the detail covered with so many different people. And then to come to having one person working with you on the website and one person. Person working with you in the customer service and operations, that transition I think was the hardest thing for me personally to try and sort of get rearrange my brain to think in a very different way in a startup mentality. But I think customer service is the thing that you have to think about ahead of everything else. So you will make mistakes and actually when you, when something does go wrong, solving that and turning it into a great experience can actually be even better in terms of their advocacy for you as a brand and the way you look after after them.
- [24:22]
Dennis Scully
Absolutely.
- [24:23]
Andy Harding
Than just delivering something sort of, you know, from, from start to finish without any problems. So, I mean, gosh, there were so many things to think and there still are so many things to think about. And the business evolves and our proposition evolves, but we, you know, e commerce is complicated, so you have to get all the pieces of the jigsaw sorted out. And I think that, you know, that was a, that was a big, big exercise.
- [24:47]
Nicola Harding
A big exercise and it's a dynamic process and it's being alive to all the learnings that are happening all the time and yeah, I guess be excited about that. I don't think either of us would ever want to get to the point where we didn't feel like each day was stretching us and we were learning something from it.
- [25:07]
Dennis Scully
Well, you're certainly stretching yourselves in this case. So I'm going to check in with you.
- [25:12]
Nicola Harding
Yeah, yeah. Maybe when I'm cuddle on the floor, stretching is going.
- [25:16]
Dennis Scully
But let's tell people exactly what the nickname business is and what the collection is that you've assembled so that people can understand and how you've approached it. Because as you say, a lot of it is made to order, but a lot of it was born out of the work that you do and things that might have been missing in the marketplace. Or wouldn't it be great if there was a quality piece like this that people could buy more easily? So tell me.
- [25:42]
Nicola Harding
Yes, exactly that. I think that we needed these things first of all for our hotel projects where you need just not one bedside table but 50 and you know, 30 wall lights. And so we sort of started creating these things for our hotel projects and then we found that Actually, our residential projects wanted them. And then we found people beyond just ourselves.
- [26:05]
Dennis Scully
Humans wanted them.
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Nicola Harding
Yeah. You know, other designers wanted them for their projects. You know, customers, retail customers wanted them for theirs. And I think that one of the, the biggest surprises for me, but actually you had identified it ahead of time, has been the incredible reception we've received from the trade. You know, I think, I think they're really useful tools for designers and that certainly has manifested in who our client base is.
- [26:30]
Dennis Scully
Well, I certainly couldn't help but think of the expert, for example, in the, in the States. Right. So they built their online component with product and originally thought they were going to be selling it to consumers, to high end consumers. But then of course, it was really the trade that embraced it the most and most immediately and they saw literally within days of launching it that that was who was coming to them because it was perfectly tailored for them. And so I think it makes sense that the trade would appreciate what you've done. So let's talk about specifics of the product that you're offering at the moment and what's available and, and even let's talk about the studio that I had the pleasure of visiting on Sunday and what I got to see in the first sort of retail iteration of it.
- [27:18]
Nicola Harding
Yeah, I suppose in the way that the business was in our own home for the longest time and lunchtime would be around our kitchen table, meetings would be at our kitchen table. When we came to create our own studio, we wanted it to very much have that feeling. You know, we've created a kitchen, there's one of our big tables and, you know, and it is full also with our pieces, but in a very natural way. So when you come, I think you feel like you're visiting us at home. And certainly we love bringing people together. We have sort of kitchen suppers where we invite clients, suppliers, press, and it's a chance for everyone to sort of get together and share ideas.
- [28:05]
Andy Harding
Well, customers always come into the showroom on the weekends and say, do you guys live here? And we say, this is like a home.
- [28:13]
Nicola Harding
Yeah. And I think, you know, our pieces are, you know, the building blocks of homemaking. And they're the sort of quiet heroes of homemaking.
- [28:22]
Andy Harding
So our focus is across, you know, a number of categories where lighting is a big part of the range. So we, from floor lights and lamps, ceiling pendants and wall light and furniture from dining tables, side tables, console tables, and then beds. We make four poster beds and our bestsellers are four poster beds, upholstered beds, and then our Upholstery range. So we have, you know, sofas of all different sizes, armchairs, love seats.
- [28:56]
Nicola Harding
We have our own fabrics, which are, you know, our own designs of sort of checks and stripes that are woven in an incredible historic mill in the north of England using a mixture of organic cotton and linen. I suppose there's a sort of underlying theme of utilitarian, you know, what's useful, and there's an Englishness to them. There's a familiarity, there's something comforting. And I think that that's a theme that runs through what we do. There's a sort of comfort and an ease to it. You know, everything has grown out of not just our hotel experience, but the experience of having three very robustious children and a house, a house that's always full of friends and family. So everything gets thoroughly tested, you know, and everything that we make needs to stand up to that degree of real life. And so, yes, you know, I think one of our favorite pieces is probably our dining table. And, you know, again, there's that sort of practical question that it grew out of, is how do you create a table where you can squeeze as many people around it as possible? You know, it's taking the legs right into the middle so that there's no one sitting around the table clashing with a table leg. And it can go neatly against, you know, a window seat or a banquette. And in fact, we've created a dining bench that does just that. It gives you the sort of comfort and ease of a banquette, but as a loose piece of furniture. And, yeah, the. You know, we both love cooking, as do our kids. We love sitting around the table. And so our kitchen table, the gather round, you know, I think, really reflects.
- [30:46]
Andy Harding
That we really both passionately believe in sustainability and the responsible making process. And I think that's this. I come from, you know, background in fashion, in fashion, retail, since so many businesses that embraced fast fashion and. And the damage that that causes to the planet in terms of the, you know, the waste and the. The environmental damage is massive. And I think that's. It's. It really underpins our thinking around when we make pieces that they really do what we do, we really do want them to be generational, to be passed on, you know, from us to our children and for them to love them in the same way we do. So as Nick said before, durability. If they can't withstand, you know, three children, three dogs and win built on them and all that sort of thing, then, Then, then. Then they haven't been Made. Right. So that, for us is really important and. And the process of, you know, responsible making. So we. We have a charter that all of our suppliers sign a code of conduct. They insist on the making process being in the right way. You know, what our ambition ultimately is to be a B corp. Is that right? Yeah, we. I mean, it's. It's Is. We recognize actually how tough it is. We.
- [31:59]
Dennis Scully
We undertaking, Andy.
- [32:01]
Andy Harding
It is a huge undertaking. And I think. And we are absolutely on that journey. I think we were more ambitious about how quickly we could get there for as a startup.
- [32:09]
Dennis Scully
Okay.
- [32:10]
Andy Harding
And because it is. It. I mean, is. It is really, really difficult. But that's good. I mean, it's good that it's difficult because when you get it and it really tells you, you're not just greenwashing, you're not just saying that you're responsible. You really live and breathe as a.
- [32:23]
Nicola Harding
Business and it reaches every corner of everything that you do.
- [32:27]
Dennis Scully
That's right, yeah. Well, and all of your partners, to your point, really have to be on board.
- [32:31]
Andy Harding
That's right.
- [32:32]
Dennis Scully
As well.
- [32:32]
Nicola Harding
And they have to be in the. That's the challenge, I think, particularly with the interior design businesses. Well, first of all, we have so many suppliers, and then also that so many of them are really small artisans, and for them to have the sort of resources to be able to document everything in the way that you need to. To substantiate things for B Corp is very difficult. They might be doing things absolutely beautifully, and indeed they are. That's why we've chosen to work with them. But they're too small to be able to really demonstrate that.
- [33:07]
Dennis Scully
And are they all relatively local suppliers that you're working with?
- [33:11]
Andy Harding
Well, that's really important as well. We want to be able to go and visit any of them within a day. So we don't work with anybody that's in the Far east or in South America or places like that. All of our makers are either based in the UK, roughly 50% of our makers are in the UK, or they're in Europe.
- [33:31]
Dennis Scully
And so including the lighting and all of that.
- [33:34]
Nicola Harding
Yeah, everything, Everything, everything.
- [33:36]
Andy Harding
Absolutely everything is made on shore or near shore.
- [33:38]
Dennis Scully
Right, okay, interesting. Nick, I want to. I want to take a second to talk about the kids and the dogs and the durability. Right, okay. So in America, performance fabric is all the rage. Right. Because people want their dogs up on the furniture and the thing. And apparently Americans seem to think that they spill a lot of red wine, so it has to be resistant to that as well. I Don't know. I haven't seen so much of that, but apparently they're very worried about that. So is performance fabric? I mean, is that a. Is that a big thing here? Do you use performance fabrics? Are your fabrics performance fabrics?
- [34:13]
Nicola Harding
So, I mean, we're very aware of it, and it is, you know, a growing thing, and there's more and more options, which is great. But. But, you know, performance fabrics often have quite a lot of synthetic fiber in them or they are impregnated with toxins, neither of which we particularly want. Having said that, we do have an intelligent velvet in our range, which is made out of a high proportion of recycled synthetic fiber, and that really is bulletproof. You know, your dog can do whatever. Your dog. Your dog can spill his red wine on the sofa and no one needs to worry about it. But, you know, wool, for example, you know, is clearly a natural fiber that is impregnated with lanolin, an oil. And that oil repels moisture and as a result repels stains and repels fire. So you can have some of those qualities without having to go through the chemical process. And that's something that we really champion. I think there are ways of making a home user friendly without having to fill it full of toxins.
- [35:28]
Dennis Scully
You have some product licensing arrangements. Part of your room at wow House has the Drummond product in it. Right. That's gonna be. Is that launching soon or now?
- [35:38]
Nicola Harding
Yes. Drummond's collaboration is live. We've created three beautiful bathroom vanity, I think you call them wash stands in America, like the doubles, a single and then a small single. And we've designed down to the brass ware, which they have cast in their own foundry. But yeah, it's been a fun way to combine our know how with cabinetry with their incredible bathroom where, you know, they are one of the few businesses that own their whole supply chain and, you know, take that their sort of values around craftsmanship to absolutely everything that they produce.
- [36:21]
Dennis Scully
So part of why I asked that question is often an easier route might be to do a licensing deal with a furniture line. You chose to have your own. Tell me about that decision and why you wanted to go this far more challenging path versus just working with a furniture line and saying, hey, we've got some great designs and maybe we can collaborate. Tell me why you wanted to make it all your own.
- [36:54]
Andy Harding
I would say that, you know, I think having the design, us owning the design entirely and having the piece that's. That's. That's not from a catalog or not from an existing range is special. I Mean, there's just something unique about it, you know. Go on, you're going to.
- [37:10]
Nicola Harding
Well, I was just going to say I think it grew out of a sort of specific moment of time, which was we were installing two hotels. One was the Mitre and one was Beaverbrook Townhouse during COVID when there wasn't just the sort of, you know, travel restrictions and supply chain issues, but, you know, there was that tanker that got stuck in the Suez Canal, and it really brought home where things were being made, you know, and there were pieces that we had commissioned our designs for other people to make, and it became very clear where they were making them. And we just thought, you know, we don't want to be part of this. You know, we want to know absolutely where our things are being made, how they're being made, how the people who are making them are being looked after. And we felt that the only way to have complete confidence was to take matters into our own hands.
- [38:06]
Dennis Scully
Okay, because you really wanted that insight into every aspect of things.
- [38:11]
Andy Harding
We want the relationship with the workshop. We really want to know. We want to be able to go to the workshop to see the working conditions, to understand the makers and the craftsmen that are working there, to talk to the owners, really get a real trust and truth around exactly how it's being made. And I think if you're licensing something from someone else, as Nick said, you just don't know. You don't have the same relationship. There's an in between person that you work with.
- [38:36]
Nicola Harding
Also, I think you're. There's another person in the chain. So rather than the money being spent on the quality of the piece, it's somebody else's margin, you know, and we'd much rather that the investment from the end user is going as much as possible into creating something really, really beautiful that they will want to hold onto and that their children want to hold onto, rather than something that's good enough. We recognize that our pieces are a stretch, but we want to make them within reach for as many people as possible and that they will buy better, but buy once.
- [39:14]
Andy Harding
As the business evolves, you know, we. And as we have ambitions to grow our product ranges and do different things, I think we will evolve the thinking around how we can, how we can achieve that with the same philosophy. I mean, it's just, I think realistically for us to be able to get into other categories that we don't have experience with. If we wanted to do tableware, if we wanted to do things, bed linen and things like that, that's that's a much harder than, than categories to then follow the same philosophy. But yeah, I think we still can achieve our ambitions in terms of understanding our makers, but with partnerships. So I think there's a, there is a sense that the evolution of the business will need to at some point have some different sorts of business models that allows us to, to keep growing our breadth as well as our growth.
- [40:10]
Nicola Harding
And I think that's why partnering with businesses like Drum and Zoom and Zooey, who I've worked with Since I was 19 at that point, buying the odd piece of salvage from their salvage yard and hindhead, and their businesses evolve radically, as has mine. But the values that we both hold have been at our core since then. You know, so businesses where, you know, we know that we have a shared understanding, you know, then we, you know, we absolutely are interested in working with them. And you know, we did a pop up recently with Edward Bulmer and you know, we, we're great admirers of what they do. So there are all sorts of people, I think because we're a business who have so many active partnerships through the interior design side where we're constantly collaborating with people for sort of one off pieces or, you know, some level of involvement in a project. It gives us a chance to really intimately get to know people and then sort of have sight of who we might want to work with in the future.
- [41:18]
Dennis Scully
So I've got to get ready to wrap up because we've got to get you out of here and get back to your lives. But two things, and I want to talk about the book really quickly and I want to understand. So Homing Instinct is coming out in September. Yes.
- [41:32]
Nicola Harding
Yes.
- [41:32]
Dennis Scully
Okay. So tell me why you wanted to do this book, what you hope this book sort of helps with in your work in the business. Tell me how you think about it.
- [41:44]
Nicola Harding
The book's been an amazing sort of gift from Rizzoli of an opportunity to reflect on what we've done before now. And I think the name Homing Instinct speaks to my own experience of growing up constantly moving around and craving that sort of sense of home and the journey since then of kind of exploring what is the alchemy of home and, you know, the privilege of working with these nine different households to create homes for them, some of which have been published and many of which haven't. So it's a chance to really kind of bring them to light for the first time.
- [42:23]
Dennis Scully
And for you, Andy, when you're thinking about coming to the States with this, right, with this E Commerce business, what's keeping you up at night when you think about the whole thing? I mean, what seems the most challenging aspect of it? You can tell me.
- [42:38]
Andy Harding
I can. Well, yeah, that's a great question. I think uncertainty probably about the US administration at the moment in terms of, you know, what they're. What Donald Trump's trying to achieve and, you know, the changing of the goal, the constant change of the goalpost in terms of, you know, what the costs are, the tariff costs and, you know, what you can and can't do and the inconsistency, I think, in approach so that one doesn't know what tomorrow looks like and how challenge, what different challenges there will be. I think that in and of itself breeds a lack of consumer confidence, which is a challenge, but also from a pricing, shipping, you know, all the pieces of the jigsaw that are involved in making pieces in the UK and then sending them over to the US is inherently complex. And so you want some certainty around that, to be able to know the pricing that you're offering and the service that you're offering and the time that you're offering. Those, I guess, are the main things keeping me up. We're launching our US website in a couple of weeks, so that's exciting. And we are. The decision was to make it fully E commerce, so that. And we would include the shipping cost in the price, really much like we do in the UK Actually. We, you know, lots of almost all of our competitors, I think, in the UK peers, I should say, rather than competitors, they charge delivery separately and a delivery is dependent on where you live and so forth. And we don't. I come from a fashion retail background and free delivery was always really, really important. You want. Want people to get to the checkout and know exactly what they're going to pay when they see the price. And so that's been our philosophy to date and I think we've taken the same view, albeit it is marginally more risky. But I think it's quite exciting, the fact that we can show a customer in America exactly the price, that it will be delivered to you in a wooden crate, perfectly packaged so that there are no damages. And it would be delivered to your doorstep in anywhere in the US Yes. I have to say, with exception, I think of Alaska and Hawaii. I think it's. But that's the decision we've taken and I think it's the right one. Does it make me worried? Does it keep you up at night? Not really. I'm super excited about the opportunity in the US for Our business, because I think our product and aesthetic and our service is. We've got lots and lots of amazing feedback from people in the US saying they can't wait for us to. To offer it.
- [45:04]
Nicola Harding
And we've been. We've been lucky enough to be sort of learning over the past year where, you know, we've been working with our partners, but Brooks Thomas there. And so we've. We've had a chance to really get to know how things work and, you know, so we're not coming at this cold in the next two weeks. You know, this is.
- [45:27]
Andy Harding
It's the next step in an evolution. Yes.
- [45:29]
Dennis Scully
And you've gotten a taste of the American market.
- [45:31]
Nicola Harding
Market to your. Yes, right, exactly. And how the shipping works and how. There was one thing, Dennis, that we haven't talked about. Having grown up moving around a lot, the daughter of a helicopter pilot, you know, I had a great time and there was plenty of fun, but I always hankered after that sense of belonging. And my idea of what that felt like was really germinated in visits to my godfather and his husband, Tim and Oz, at their house in Richmond in Yorkshire, which is, in fact a B and B called Millgate House. And they were teachers at quite a rough comprehensive in Yorkshire. And they lived in this tumbledown house and filled it full of stuff they had insatiable appetite for collecting. And, you know, they would travel during the school holidays and collect things on their travels. They would also sort of hoover up bits that other people were throwing out, brown furniture, tea sets, whatever it was. But they also collected people, you know, waifs and strays who, for whatever reason, didn't fit in or, you know, had fallen out with their own families, and they would, you know, invite them to live with them for periods of time and, you know, all these things brought together that might otherwise have sort of slightly lost track of their place in the world created this atmosphere that hit you square between the eyes when you walked through the door. And it was this sort of. Yeah, jumble of things that were being looked after and whose meaning created this sense of this magic feeling of home. And I think that was what home came to mean for me, this sort of place of ease where nothing was out of place because there was no clear definition of what should be in place. And, yeah, I guess it's that sort of magic that then, you know, when I bought my first flat in Edinburgh, and it also was sort of tumbling down, and I. I also was working on no budget, and I sort of filled it full of antique finds and you know, some experimental paint colors and lots of friends. And then, you know, I was lucky enough to have that feeling of home. And ever since then, I've been working to create that in our own family homes and in the homes of anyone who will give me half a chance.
- [48:14]
Dennis Scully
Well, and. And since I asked Andy what's keeping him up at night. So here you are juggling an interior design business. You've got this whole Nyx collection that's going and the book coming out, and I assume soon to be book tour that will be involved with all of that and appearances and, I mean, so what's stressing you out the most in all of that?
- [48:36]
Nicola Harding
Well, do you know what? I think we do have a book tour coming up, which we're really looking forward to, but, you know, none of that would be possible. Possible without the incredible people around us, you know, in every piece of our life, you know, and being a working mum is only possible because of the constant rallying of family and friends, the patience of our children. You know, the projects that we do are made possible because of our team, because of our suppliers, because of the trust of our clients. So, you know, I guess it's trying to sort of do the best by all those people who we rely on that. That keeps me up at night.
- [49:16]
Dennis Scully
Well, it's a lot. It's a lot. You've both got a lot going on, which is why it's so lovely of you to have made the time to come up to my room here at the ham yard and more stuff, I hope.
- [49:27]
Nicola Harding
Yes.
- [49:28]
Dennis Scully
And I'm so eager to hear how all of this goes. And so we will definitely have to plan some time to talk again in the future. Good luck with the rollout in the US and everything that's coming up. I can't wait. Wait to see the book. And it sounds like you'll be coming to the States to.
- [49:44]
Nicola Harding
Yes, we'll be in the States in the autumn. So, yeah. Please follow us. Look. Look at what we're up to and come and join us.
- [49:52]
Dennis Scully
Absolutely. Well, thank you both so much for making the time.
- [49:55]
Andy Harding
Thank you, Dennis.
- [49:55]
Nicola Harding
Thank you, Dennis.
- [49:56]
Dennis Scully
Absolute pleasure. Thanks for listening. If you'd like to keep up with the latest design industry news, visit us online@businessofhome.com we you can sign up for our newsletter, browse job listings, and join our BoH Insider community for access to online workshops, a free print subscription, and much more. If you have a note for the podcast, drop us a line@podcastusofhome.com if you're enjoying these conversations. Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps others to discover the show. This show was produced by Fred Nicholas and edited by Michael Castaneda. I'm Dennis Scully. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you next week.