Ruth is so talented and it’s amazing that she’s still so dedicated to making these dishes after 40 years. I have two hanging above my bed at home and it makes me happy to see them every day.
I’ve been coveting these salt and pepper mills for a while now. My favourite thing about them is that each one is different depending on the lines of the woodgrain. I feel that these are an essential item in my life as I am a severe over-user of pepper.
I use this Rosewater every day and it smells so good! It’s refreshing and perfect for my sensitive skin.
These socks are such beautiful little objects and the colours Ophelia has used in her new collection are all so pretty.
This linen is amazing quality and it has such a satisfying weight to it. Not to mention the Grandma-esque floral print and matching ruffled pillowcases.
Our friend Liam Bowden is the designer behind hugely successful local brand, Deadly Ponies. We are lucky enough to have collaborated with Liam on the Deadly Ponies x Everyday Needs diffusion line of utilitarian bags, of which new season styles and colours have just dropped. We spoke to Liam about his picks from the Everyday Needs range.
Got one of these last year, they are the perfect bush walk companion.
A little biased but these bags are so handy, I use the red one in the garden, green one as a picnic basket and now have a blue one to carry around all my samples.
I go through candles like wild fire. These last for ages and smell great.
I am a sucker for anything brass.
Constantly on my wish list, the problem is I can't choose just one. Amazing story and beautiful colours, maybe someone will take a hint and get me one for Xmas!
I’m not very practical and after being too loose with previous laptops I double bag my latest one, and my outer is the laptop wallet EDN has made with Deadly Ponies. For all its good looks, it’s probably not the most beautiful thing in the store but something I can’t do without on a daily level.
My brother sends down Vital Force tea from the far north, a delicious mix of homegrown herbs which I make in the Hario glass teapot in differing concoctions. That is when not making kukicha tea, a liquid addiction since doing a macrobiotic cooking course with Bevan Kaan many many moons ago.
Living in a house built in the early 70’s, that feels a little like a boat or a playhouse, and with no electronic ventilation, incense is a daily practise. I like the idea that incense improves the vibrations of the place it is burnt in.
I have bought Maryse’s treatment balm for friends and assistants, and everyone has become, like myself, unable to live without it. Not a daily practise but an hourly one.
In the kitchen nothing is more everyday, and in some ways more intimate, than cutlery. We are forever putting it in our mouths and it takes attention to clean it properly. The Olio cutlery set designed by Barber & Osgerby is beautifully simple and ergonomic.
Have always liked these. And I love how they were designed for Arnold Circus in London. Haven’t got any for home but my twin sister Carter has some for her shop in Grey Lynn. They are great because they stack, are comfortable and kid/outdoors friendly.
We all need this book to remind us just how potent and resourceful and cheap the creative imperative ought be. Martino Gamper is the exquisite antidote to excess.
I wonder if this is the most beautiful thing I own. It could only be Japanese – an organic beaten finish, dark patinated copper, and impossible precision.
The slightly swollen form of these Japanese glasses is almost perfect. They have no flat surface, gain stability as they fill and yet spin like a top. Somehow this is deft enough to seem a kind of genius, not a gimmick. Exquisite.
Ok, it’s just a wooden spoon. But its proportion is everything. And it’s six dollars fifty.
I once made a little house based on a cast iron teapot. Such mute heft. This one got snapped up so I keep watching the shop for its replacement. I’m struggling to imagine a better one, but Katie Lockhart has not ever failed me…
Martino Gamper is a London based designer who visits New Zealand each Summer. We caught up with Martino before he jetted back to London to chat about his favourite Everyday Needs pieces.
"My selection is very much based on what I use and appreciate EVERY DAY! Its also a collection inspired by some people that I've met over the last years spending time in NZ. On my way home now and sad to leave this very special place and people!"
A table mat for every occasion! To protect your table from the heat of a hot pot or a tea pot! Or just as a decorative centre piece.
Big fan of Ruth Castle, we use this basket every day, for ginger and garlic. Also love her woven dishes.
I love hooks, can never have enough of them - and especially nice ones - a hook for any situation!
Love these simple blankets, very warm and stylish, local and natural.
The candle stick and the candle are just a perfect match, but I also like the wild clay approach and of course Laurie Steer, who is a very generous potter friend from the Mount. Laurie, we're back next year for more playing with clay!
Photograph of Martino in his studio by Ben Quinton.
Jeremy Hansen is a writer and the editor of excellent architecture and interiors magazine, HOME. This week he shares with us his personal picks from the Everyday Needs range.
I’ve admired Martino Gamper’s work for ages, and was lucky enough to visit his London studio last year. These stools are wonderfully stackable and multi-functional. They have the perfect blend of elegance and wit, a combination Martino manages better than almost every other designer.
One of my favourite possessions is a beautiful mid-century dining table and chairs formerly owned by my grandparents. They kept the timber top immaculate for 50 years, although I fear I have been less meticulous at doing so. Mats like this are perfect for protecting it from hot things.
Leslie Williamson’s photographs have a thoughtful stillness that perfectly captures the intimacy of the homes in this, the follow-up to her fantastic first book, Handcrafted Modern. I bought this book as soon as it came out last year and often find myself immersed in it.
I visited Bruce’s marvellous Hawke’s Bay home and studio by John Scott a few times as a kid, and have always loved the pottery he created with his late wife, Estelle. This book charts the amazing beginnings of their life in ceramics: they chucked in their jobs to become potters and made numerous working and study trips to Japan in the 1970s. Bruce’s eternal open-mindedness, curiosity and quiet sense of adventure comes through beautifully in this diary of their travels.
The nights are getting cooler, so one of these New Zealand wool blankets designed by Kirsty Cameron feels like just the thing to wrap myself in while reading on the sofa.
Our first edit of the year is by our good friend Lucy Vincent. Lucy is the creator of Sans [ceuticals] a hair and skin care range that is a favourite of ours, she is also a brilliant cook and is pictured in her kitchen testing some of her fermented goods. Lucy shares with us her most used Everyday Needs pieces.
I buy these for my kids (disregard title) because they are indestructible!
This is hands down the best grinder I have ever used. Looks incredible but best of all, it never fails to give a generous grind as the mechanics are so good. I have spent countless dollars on grinders in the past to only be disappointed. This is a must for all foodies!
I'm a massive fan of these – so much so, they are the only socks I wear. They wash exceptionally well (meaning they don’t resemble a felt toy sock after two or three washes), are made from 100% Mohair and Alpaca and are great both in summer and winter.
I'm a mad fermenter and pickler and have tried all sorts of storage vessels – Weck win hands down. The lids don’t rust, they come in assorted shapes - brilliant for stacking into small places (I have the smallest kitchen known to man!) and allow the right amount of air to escape for fermented goods.
I’ve had these for 3 years now and they are still as sharp as the day I bought them – amazing since I use them in both garden and kitchen. They still cut paper exceptionally well!
Andrew Barber is a painter whose work is well known for transforming a space. This week we visited Andrew at home to talk about some of his most used Everyday Needs pieces, as well as documenting them in situ.
They're a bucket, a step ladder, throw a piece of wood over two and it's a bench next to the fire. They kick around the place and are always used wherever they end up.
Perfect for one. Those nights when the kids have gone to bed, enough for one cup and a top-up. And a beautiful object I feel I don't need to clean up and put away.
All my children have used this around the bathroom to reach the things they couldn't until they grew, probably will have to be destroyed they've used it so much, if I can disinfect it somehow though, it will be a family heirloom passed through the generations.
Literally the only toilet brush I've seen on these islands that doesn't look like it should be disposed of after use. And practical too - the Tampico bristles!
My dealers Sarah and Danae gave me this for my birthday last year, it has been everywhere I go since. From the beach, to the television, to under the plum tree, it's there around me.
Gallerist Michael Lett shares with us his favourite Everyday Needs pieces.
This amazing incense instantly invokes a sense of calm.
Once you drink beer from one of these incredibly light wooden tumblers, it’s hard to go back to anything else.
Since I can’t have my own hive at home, burning one of these is the next best thing.
My grandmother used to wrap my brother and I up in any number of mohair blankets. These woollen versions are rather more luxurious than my Grandmother’s, but I can’t help but equate the sensation of being cocooned in one these rugs with the memory of her.
Believe it or not we have a rabbit and a peacock problem at our cabin up north. These keep our more fragile seedlings safe from harm.
Our good friend Rufus Knight is an Everyday Needs regular and Associate at Fearon Hay Architects. We asked him to share with us his favourite Everyday Needs pieces.
Martino Gamper’s benchmark work ‘100 chairs in 100 days in 100 ways’ was, and still is, a huge influence for me in the way I approach interior and object design. Collecting discarded chairs from London streets over a period of two years and creatinga ‘three-dimensional sketchbook' that questioned authenticity, function, reproduction, and ergonomics. The project is fullof vitality and executed in such a human and gregarious fashion which, to me, characterises all of Gamper’s work.
In the late 1800s a small initiative started in Stockholm for visually impaired artisans and aimed to support their ability to live off craftwork – brush binding & basket building crafts were, and still are, central to this movement. In 2012 local government withdrew the disbursement of aid and small handcraft companies like Iris Hantverk had an uncertain future. The company has since been purchased by a small group of long-term employees and still produce all products by hand using local Swedish timbers and natural bristle materials like horse hair and coconut and agave fibres.
Werkstätte Carl Auböck was founded in Vienna in 1900 and developed a design language that became an essential part of Austrian Modernism. From the mid-20th century the workshop has been directed by the fourth-generation of Auböck and has produced objects that continue a lineage of quality, formal beauty, and humour. These patinated brass bookends capture the Auböck signature perfectly.
Bing is something of an anomaly in the New Zealand design & art community. His prolific output of ceramics, metalwork, and timber sculptures is unmatched and has always had a sophistication that seems to borrow from local influences but extend beyond the traditional New Zealand design vernacular – a lot like Mrkusich. Similarly, these gestural postcards remind me of the vibrant European avant-gardists like Jean Arp or the salient forms of Brancusi but whose colour palette seems to speak specifically of New Zealand.
As part of a new series we are asking our friends to share their favourite Everyday Needs pieces. This week fashion designer Karen Walker shares an edit of her most used items.
Martino Gamper's Arnold Circus Stools not only look great but are very durable. We use them in our staff room and they give character to what would otherwise be quite a simple space.
I use one of these teapots every single day to steep my fresh ginger tea.
We stay at The Claska Hotel every time we are in Tokyo and these towels from their Do Store are great.
I've had one of these lamps on my desk for five years and I love it. Elegant and a beautiful dusty colour.
My husband Mikhail gave me this milk pan for Christmas last year. I use it every week for one thing or another - for me that makes it the perfect present.