Culture

The Essentials According To... Matilda Goad

The London-based homeware designer shares everything essential to making her house a home. From her favourite peanut butter brand, to kettles, sheets and skincare

By Aswan Magumbe

10 February 2022
M

atilda Goad’s ascension to homeware director and designer began as a young creative studying Art at Camberwell College of Arts in London, forcing her to leave the quiet county of Sussex. Upon graduating, she was quick to gain experience in the fashion industry.

She spent a number of years taking on internships, often hopping between magazines such as Vogue Russia and Wonderland Magazine. Most notably, she worked with fashion photographer, stylist and former British Vogue fashion director Venetia Scott. While frequenting shoots with Scott, she grew to admire the multifaceted nature of the job, becoming particularly curious about set design and props. Goad highlights a specific moment where she went into a prop house and saw the possibilities her creativity could extend to, creating sets and physical spaces.

Her mantra was ‘say yes to everything’, which included curating shop windows and dressing beds. It was during this time, she saw a gap in the market for homeware. ‘Why is every lampshade on the market boring with straight rims?’...and so began experimenting with her own designs.

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Flashforward a few years, and her personal grandeur-meets-homely sense of style has infiltrated her 2016-launched namesake homeware label Matilda Goad. The brand boasts its popular scallop-edged lampshades - a design which she recalls having had phone calls with up to 20 factories to produce just one sample idea - amongst other beautiful home accessories, which have catapulted it to the success it has.

This hefty process is one many founders can relate to and is simply one of ‘learning as you go along’. Goad assures us that the process has been ‘very gradual’, aiding the brand’s organic growth but now five years into the business, it has grown in every way. With skews ranging from cutlery to tabletop accessories, through to (more) lamps they’ve begun designing themselves; they’ve even been able to spare time to collaborate with British personalised stationery brand Papier.

Matilda Goad’s next step? Global takedown.

From fine linen and whistling enamel kettles to Diptyque candles and Spanish baskets, Matilda Goad shares her list of long-term and newfound essentials which you can find below.

Homeware must-haves…

Volga Linen have really beautiful linen, it reminds me of holidays

TROVE by Studio Duggan on Golborne Road

Mirrors that are flattering are a must

Piglet in Bed - I particularly like their flat sheets

Bulbs and paperwhite Hyacinths that add that natural sense to a home

The Cyprès candle from Diptyque

These get me through the morning…

I have an enamel kettle, quite an old fashioned one that whistles when it’s boiling - there’s something really charming about that

I love a brand of peanut butter called ManiLife

All Oskia skincare

I also love REN Skincare - they do a really nice rose bath oil

Music is essential in the morning - very chilled (through a SONOS speaker)

Had to be taken into 2022…

Jeans by B Sides

Cubitts do really great sunglasses; they also add your name and your size, which I think is really clever

I love gold hoop earrings - especially Earrings by Motley, who collaborate with a lot of designers

Baskets! To use instead of a handbag. I can never get enough, I love that thing of being on holiday in Spain and buying them in the supermarket!

Photograph by Harry Crowder.

The Short Stack

London-based interior designer and creative consultant Matilda Goad is renowned for her intricate, scallop-lined pieces but beyond the homeware, she embodies style - and she has a range of essentials to prove just that.

By Aswan Magumbe

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