Centurion

8 Holland Street is featured in Centurion Magazine: "A Close Up on the Artists, Artisans and Architects Enlivening our World" rubbing shoulders with Sophie Ashley, House of Hackney, Cox London and The Invisible Collection. Written by Fiona McCarthy. Tobias Vernon’s 8 Holland Street in Kensington has particularly mastered the art of mixing ancient and modern, precious and found, sophisticated and naïve in a welcoming environment. “I always wondered why art dealers just hung things on the walls and furniture dealers only had things on the floor and there wasn’t much else in between,” Vernon says. At 8 Holland Street, whether in the London store or its more recent Somerset outposts in Bath and Mells, “there are no fixed genres and no hierarchy,” he says, where his only rule of thumb is that everything needs a patina and sense of narrative, whether real or imagined,” he explains. It reflects how Vernon feels a home should be. “The best interiors I know around the world are ones that have evolved over time.” The store’s alluring “maximist” mix of Paolo Buffa 1950s chairs, Arts & Crafts sideboards and vintage Moroccan rugs teamed alongside contemporary ceramics by Nicola Tassie and Freya Bramble-Carter, Sandra Blow screen prints and Murano chandeliers feels “uplifting and playful”, says Vernon, “where anyone can come in. It’s unintimidating.” And that’s precisely the joy of it: “Having a physical space these days probably doesn’t make financial sense as such, but like, who cares?” he laughs. “I would never be doing what I am now if it had only been online. There’s more to it than that.”