Let's set the scene. You're at an antiques fair and spot a beautiful old chair. It's perfect, almost. Perhaps there's a gaping hole in the woven rush seat, or a rip in the upholstered back, or maybe the aging paintwork is filled with unsightly scratches. Try as we might to call these ‘characterful’ flaws, sometimes it seems like a piece is simply a little too well-loved to deserve a place in your home. But it doesn't have to be the end of the line.
Vinterior's ‘One of One’ collection, in celebration of Second Hand September, showcases how vintage and antique pieces can be given a completely new look and a new life. The curated marketplace that stocks around 400,000 vintage and antique items invited four brands and creatives to choose a piece from the site, and reinvent it through their own distinctive lens. The four collaborators are: crafty high street brand TOAST, British menswear and tailoring label Drake's, Sussex and London-based decorative artist Tess Newall, who's printed wallpaper has been seen in House & Garden projects, and multidisciplinary Cornwall-based artist Madeleine Kemsley, who specialises in hand embroidery.
It's a collaboration that merges the worlds of fashion, art and interiors, and one that encourages us to slow down and think more meaningfully about the pieces we choose for our home: the craft, skill and materials that go into making them, as well as the past lives and stories that exist within them. After being reinterpreted by these creatives, the four pieces in this collection now have assured future lives as well, in the homes of whoever is lucky enough to own them. Vinterior founder and CEO Sandrine Zhang Ferron said, ‘in a world full of fast furniture, these pieces stand out… They’ve been made to last, and now they’ve been reimagined to be loved all over again.’
As the name of the collection suggests, each piece is one of one, entirely unique and a collector's item to treasure. Let's take a closer look at the four, which are all available to buy now.
An Ercol armchair embroidered by Madeleine Kemsley
An antique cupboard painted by Tess Newall
A walnut and cane window seat reupholstered in Drake’s shirting fabric
A 1960’s Swedish oak armchair reupholstered by TOAST with Japanese boro stitch fabric
