BEHIND THE DESIGNS: Home for Christmas
As a creative team, our in-house designers start working on Christmas more than a year in advance. We build a range based on those perennial moments of magic – like glittery parties, grotto visits for the kids, Christmas markets and switching on the lights.
This collection began with simple inspirations. Family. A classic, traditional Christmas in London. And a very strong register of a proper festive red. We wanted something colourful and bright with pieces that became part of your collection. That you’d wrap away with such love and care come New Year, shrouded in happy memories to store for the next. We didn’t design for a 2020 Christmas, but for many moments of magic to come, year after year.
Poppy, our print designer, joins us for a sneak peek behind the scenes to give us a glimpse of what it takes to make the magic of Christmas at Cath.
Introducing Poppy:
Our multi-talented Poppy is both our homeware product designer and print designer. At Cath for about two and a half years, she loves how varied and creative her role is, which stretches from suggesting new and exciting categories for the home department, to designing beautiful products, to painting and drawing new prints.
When not at work, Poppy is writing her own recipe book and loves cold water swimming (shudders). Before work starts, you’ll frequently find her at the lido or braving the sea.
Christmas must be such a magical collection to design for, how do you get started?
With a little bit of everything really! We rummage through the archive, think back on childhood memories or our favourite Christmas traditions. We all throw in colours we love and most associate with a proper family Christmas. It all just goes from there.
We are famous for our novelty prints, there’s always a funny little detail to be found, how do you think of them? And do you have a favourite detail?
This is often very collaborative and we egg each other on to new ideas that make us smile. We’re often saying ‘what about if he was wearing a hat?’ My particular fave is the penguin fishing for presents on the Christmas mug! We love hiding lots of little details for our customers to find.
This year our Christmas collection is all about ‘Home for Christmas’, what does this mean to you?
I think for everyone, going home, somewhere familiar and safe, with the people you love is what Christmas is all about. For me that’s my friends and family. Christmas is a very relaxed time for us, it’s definitely about being cosy, long walks and an enormous amount of cheese!
