Why 90% of People HATE BAG&BONES

By Gigi Foyle, Founder & Creative Director of BAG&BONES

My mum doesn’t own a single thing by BAG&BONES. Not one.

I have been making things for BAG&BONES for ten years. Neon. Lamps. Sculptures. Artworks. Objects of varying degrees of obscurity. Some of them useful. Some of them useless. Some of them, arguably, quite difficult to explain. But all of them loved by someone.

But my own mother has looked at this decade-long body of work and thought: “Nah, it’s not for me, Gigi.” I mean, she says it in a very nice way; it’s just not her vibe.

I actually find this quite reassuring. Because if my mum suddenly rang me and said she’d cleared a space on the mantelpiece for a Splattered Bearmouse, I’d be concerned. Not about her. About us. About BAG&BONES.

A useful amount of repulsion

I’d estimate that somewhere around 90% of the population would never buy anything from BAG&BONES. Possibly 95%. I haven’t commissioned Ipsos to investigate this, so please don’t quote me. But the point stands.

Most people probably don’t want a dripping paint pot sculpture in their sitting room. They don’t want a neon sign glowing above the kitchen table. They don’t want a slightly sinister Observer sculpture watching them from the bookshelf. They might look at my house and wonder whether we’ve been burgled, but the burglars brought things in.

And that’s absolutely fine. In fact, it’s rather important. Because I think one of the easiest ways to make something completely forgettable is to try very hard not to offend anybody.

You sand away the strange bits. Tone down the colour. Remove the swear word. Make it a little more tasteful. A little more sensible. A little easier to sell. Until eventually you’ve created something that absolutely nobody hates.

Unfortunately, nobody particularly loves it either.

The people who recoil are part of the test

Whenever we’re developing something new, there is a point where I wonder: Is this too much? Too big? Too weird? Too colourful? Too silly? Too rude? Or sometimes, just a bit much?

Good. That’s usually when it starts getting interesting.

I don’t mean we deliberately design things to be ugly or difficult. Contrarianism for its own sake is just as boring as trying to please everybody. The object still has to earn its place. It has to make us laugh, intrigue us, seduce us, or, most of all, make us want to touch it.

But indifference? That’s the killer.

I’d much rather somebody looked at something we’d made and said, “No f*cking way — that is not going in my house.” Because somewhere else, someone is probably thinking: “I am OBSESSED. I WANT it.”

Those two reactions are much more closely related than they appear.

Taste is supposed to divide us

There is something slightly strange about the way we talk about good taste. As though, eventually, if we all become sufficiently sophisticated, we’ll arrive at the same beautifully curated room.

We won’t. Thank the sweet lord.

One person’s exquisite restraint is another person’s beige hell. One person’s vulgar is another person’s glorious. One person’s “statement piece” is another person’s “what the hell is that?”

And somewhere in that gap is taste.

The objects we choose for our homes are tiny declarations.

This makes me laugh. This gives me a little tingle. This reminds me of something. This stops me in my tracks every single day.

And occasionally: Everyone thinks this is hideous but I absolutely ADORE it.

Possibly the purest form of taste there is.

How do you find your own interior style?

I think we spend far too much time trying to work out what our interior design style is. Mid-century? Minimalist? Maximalist? Eclectic? Who gives a monkeys?

Your personal interior style is probably hiding in the things you have an irrational reaction to.

The chair you keep thinking about. The painting everyone else thinks is hideous. The completely unnecessary statement sculpture that gives you a little flutter every time you walk past it.

Pay attention to THAT stuff. (Same applies to people, incidentally.)

If you love it enough that you’d still want it in your house even if nobody else did, you’re probably getting somewhere.

Personal taste isn’t terribly personal if everybody agrees with you.

The day we become mainstream, start worrying

Obviously, I would like BAG&BONES to sell LOTS of things. I’m not completely insane. I like cash money. And we have wages to pay.

But there’s a difference between wanting more people to discover us and wanting to become something for everyone.

We don’t want the second one.

If one day our research tells us that 90% of British households would happily put a BAG&BONES sculpture on the mantelpiece, I won’t be cracking open the champagne. I’ll be checking what went wrong.

Because somewhere along the way, we’d probably have become safer.

Life is too frickin’ short for that.

Safe isn’t really what we’re here for.

I’d rather make something ten people walk past and the eleventh person stops dead for.

Something that produces an involuntary reaction.

Even if occasionally that reaction is disgust.

Especially, perhaps, if the person expressing the disgust is my mum.

She has inadvertently become one of our most useful focus groups.

If she hates it, we’re probably onto something.

BAG&BONES isn’t for everyone.

It was never supposed to be.

We don’t want to fill every home.

We’d much rather make the things that the right person sees and thinks:

“Where the f*ck have you been all my life?”

And if everybody else hates it?

Perfect.

PS Mum, I know you’ll never read this because you NEVER go on the BAG&BONES website — but you’re the most brilliant, clever lady I know and you’re our biggest inspiration. XOXO Gigi & Cav x