Wow… what can we say? 2024 was such an exciting year for us, and we want to reflect a little over the last twelve months and how we’ve grown as an independent business, and some of the remarkable people we’ve collaborated with along the way.
Expanding our presence in Peckham…
If you ever see someone pulling a trolley of colourful ceramics around Peckham, it’s likely one of our team members! This year we’ve acquired a studio, a couple of streets away from our shop. We use the studio to receive our new stock and package and send our online orders, and it’s been such a blessing - we used to have to package everything in our tiny stockroom, which is about the size of Miss Trunchbull’s chokey!
Our first collection with Fasano… and an unforgettable trip to Puglia
Early in the year Anna and Lotte visited Franco and Nicoletta, designers at the renowned family ceramic business Nicola Fasano, at their workshop in Puglia.
Anna and Lotte are both working mothers, and they’re passionate about family. Nicola Fasano are now in their fourth generation of family business - they’ve been producing their ceramics for centuries in the small town of Grottaglie. Franco and Nicoletta greeted Anna and Lotte with typically Italian hospitality - design sessions were peppered between walks along the whitewashed Mediterranean coastline and sun drenched lunches of local Puglian specialities - burrata, focaccia and orecchiette.
Together with Fasano’s talented team of ceramicists, Anna and Lotte designed their range of bold splatterware ceramics, choosing unique colourways to represent everything we love about the LAMP LDN brand - joyful and bright colours that bring the family together, to share moments and meals at the table. Each item was then hand crafted by the team, before being hand splattered using traditional tools.
Our growing team
We’ve welcomed many new members to the LAMP LDN family this year, and we’re so grateful to have them on board. We now have a Business Manager, a Digital Communications Manager, a Copywriter, a Digital Assistant, and so many friends and family who work in our little shop. A year ago, we’d never have predicted that we’d be able to be employ so many people that we admire and cherish, and to get to work alongside them!
Exciting new adventures for our talented team members
Most of our team juggle their work at LAMP LDN with other exciting jobs and escapades, and it’s been a brilliant year! Our business manager Alex left us for a few months to work as Associate Director at the Rose Theatre in Kingston, for their wonderful production of Robin Hood and the Christmas Heist. Alex’s husband, and our LAMP LDN copywriter, Ross, spent the last part of 2024 performing in the acclaimed UK premiere of The Unseen at Riverside Studios. Our digital communications manager, Claudia, has expanded her work as an artist over the past year, making colourful quilts to add to her already impressive series of colourful nude paintings. And as if this bunch weren’t already talented enough - our assistant manager Chiara has completed a brand new series of her podcast, Ki and Dee, and our digital assistant Anna joined a local football team!
Bringing home the colours of the Moroccan Souk
At LAMP LDN we’ve always had a healthy obsession with colour, and in 2024 we travelled to Morocco again to design a range of ceramics – bowls, plates and candlesticks in new colours and shapes. We were lucky enough to be shown incredible hospitality by Abdul and his team of artisans and were taken to the studios and workshops where each piece is handmade, dried in the Moroccan sun, fired in outdoor kilns and decorated by hand. We were then treated to an amazing feast of couscous at Abdul’s home and welcomed so warmly by his whole family.
Keeping up the fight for independent businesses
If 2024 taught us anything, it’s how lucky we are to be able to work with each other, doing what we love. In a market dominated by big brands and corporations, we know how difficult the struggle is to be independent, whether that’s as a business, a curator, a maker, a painter, an artist, an artisan.
This last year has been another year of meeting the amazing people who want to support us in our slightly bonkers journey to encourage mindful, responsible and sustainable ways to shop for beautiful things for the home.