Frieda Gormley and Javvy M Royle, Founders of House of Hackney, on creating a purposeful brand and pushing the boundaries of design with Mother Nature as a guiding force.
Tell us about the history of the brand.
FRIEDA: In 2011 House of Hackney was born around our kitchen table out of a desire to bring the beauty of the natural world into the home. With a typically tiny London back yard, we wanted to create indoor ‘living’ rooms inspired by the prints and palette of our design muse, Mother Nature. When we couldn’t find the interiors we were looking for we decided to create our own.
What does House of Hackney represent as a design company?
JAVVY: From the start we had a vision to create a different type of company than the ones we had worked for; one of true integrity which valued its people and our planet; one which was led by head and heart. The world didn’t need another interiors brand –we needed to create one that had true purpose.
As our aesthetic was heavily influenced by Britain’s heritage, it was important to us to use local production, for authenticity, quality and to support local employment. We spent six months travelling around the UK in our van, knocking on doors and chasing manufacturing leads. Across the country we were excited to find pockets of traditional manufacturing, where families passed down their craft through generations. We believe in buying less, but buying better. The factories we found back then are the same ones we work with today. As a team we turn designs into beautifully crafted products that we call ‘future heirlooms’; pieces created with such skill and integrity that they stand the test of time.
Nature is our muse; we can’t take without giving back and over time House of Hackney has evolved in its purpose to be a voice for Nature. Our House is built upon the foundations of Creativity, Compassion and Community. As a B Corp brand, we aim to use our business as a force for good, to truly improve the health and happiness of our planet and its people.
How do you continue to innovative in the industry?
FRIEDA: We have evolved our brand mission to become a restoration project in Nature, Craft, Community and Connection. We want to go beyond simply ‘sustaining’ and instead, actively improve the world around us. Our mission is to contribute to the regeneration of Mother Nature for the quality of life of all future generations. Our ambition is to create products that honour the natural world and these Future Generations.
We are doing this by evolving our supply chain to source regenerative cotton directly from farmers, explore wood fibre free wallpaper innovations and substituting fossil fuel derived ingredients in our paint for plant based alternatives.That’s just our main categories. We embrace opportunities to champion and trial material innovations such as mycelium and microbes in all products and packaging. We’re at the start of our journey to become a measurably regenerative brand, and are continually researching, trialling and developing our products and materials to further our mission.
What has been your most successful milestone to date?
JAVVY: Last year we followed in the footsteps of Faith in Nature and became the second company in the world to give Mother Nature legal personhood on our board of directors, and the first company to appoint Future Generations to our board. We have learned that being sustainable and merely ‘sustaining’ life is not enough and in early 2023 we started to shift our business towards being restorative and regenerative, meaning that we are working towards restoring the damage that has been done to our collective wellbeing and natural resources by extractive business practices. We want to be accountable in all that we do, so we worked with Lawyers for Nature to appoint Mother Nature & Future Generations to our board of directors.
This means that at House of Hackney, Mother Nature and Future Generations have been given legal personhood on our board, as directors. This means a non-partisan person, independent of our business, will have a voice to ensure that in every decision made across all departments, we fully consider the future of a liveable, thriving planet for all life on earth.
What is the biggest challenge for House of Hackney in the design industry?
FRIEDA: The social and environmental impacts of running a business are broad and deep. Creating and selling products comes with responsibility. At every step in the life of a product there are social and environmental impacts from land and water use to people’s time and skills, carbon emissions, biodiversity loss and more. We are shifting our biggest product impacts on Nature, including human wellbeing, from being degenerative to regenerative.
We rely on the support and guidance of many passionate experts to challenge extractive ways of working and champion new ideas and actions that benefit the many, not just the few. From forest protection, to regenerative agriculture and supporting a new generation of diverse talent, we are proud to work hands-on with leading global and local leaders in this space. But the industry as a whole has a lot of work to do to move away from being such an extractive economy. Through sharing our journey we hope others will do the same and we can find solutions. We’re hopeful that this change is coming and that more businesses are shifting to more sustainable ways of working.
What are you focused on for 2025?
JAVVY: As a company that creates and sells products, the majority of our impacts will be down to how our products are made, what they’re made from, where they are made, how they are used and cared for and what happens to them at the end of their useful life.
We recently carried out a True Price Analysis to understand the True Price we should be paying our suppliers for our final products if their extractive impacts on Nature, including human wellbeing were taken into account.
Now that we have a good start on understanding where we should focus our efforts, we are starting a two year product innovation programme across our top three product categories, wallpaper, fabric and paint, including exploring wood-free paper innovations, regenerative farming and plant-based paint binders. Big things are coming!
www.houseofhackney.com | IG: @houseofhackney
