Beautifully simple and modern clothing brand COS has been subtly working with contemporary Danish design firm HAY for years, you might have seen their minimal HAY rails used in stores to display clothing for example. But in an exciting move, the two Scandi-style brands are teaming up to present a carefully curated collection of objects, available online and spread out in all their neat and organised glory in the COS Kensington High Street store.
COS heads of design Karin Gustaffson and Martin Andersson have handpicked items from the HAY range, from their distinctive, colourful trays to unusual glassware, porcelain cups and cotton quilts – ‘We made sure we selected items from across the HAY range so that there’s something for every room, occasion and price point, we like to describe it as HAY seen through the eyes of COS,’ says Andersson. Mette + Rolf Hay, the co-founders of HAY add: ‘At HAY we see ourselves in between fashion and architecture and in working with COS we feel like we have found a perfect home.’
I think this really is a marriage made in heaven – two brands I greatly admire for their ability to seamlessly weave good, minimal design with function and a timeless aesthetic. If you’re a smart modern woman, or man, into art and design, who shops in COS and likes wearing grey and black, then you’re more than likely dreaming of decking your home out in HAY designs. So when they asked me to style five items from the new curated collection in my own home, I couldn’t believe my luck. As many of you will know, I recently redecorated my home office and guest room (see the before and after, here). A cheap unit from Ikea, the wooden shelves in the corner of the space were always a problem – that is before I painted them white and gave them a new lease of life. It is amazing the change a fresh lick of paint made to the room, transforming my workspace from cluttered to calm in an instant.
But, with a September back-to-school feel in the air, the (almost) new shelves needed some beautiful new storage and accessories to complete the finishing touches (remember that feeling when you just had to buy a new pencil case at the start of school term?!). Well, the clean, white surfaces have inspired me to be much neater and tidier with my office space and I hope to keep it that way, with storage boxes to hide away papers and notebooks (you can never have too many) and cork pots for rolls of washi tape. I now even have a handy computer brush to keep my desktop clean and a brass clip for my packets of coffee.
I chose this cloche-like, clip-on lamp designed by London-based product designer SmithMatthias for HAY. I’ve been looking for a clip-on light for shelving for ages, I like the idea that you can move it around the house and attach it to wherever you feel like. Also, in the evenings, and especially now that it is getting darker, I much prefer putting on various lamps in a room, for a more relaxed ambiance, rather than one bright ceiling light.
This lamp, called Noc, has a faceted die cast aluminium shade and is finished with a smooth, matt powder coat. Not only does its clamp mechanism allow it to be fitted to a variety of surfaces, the shade itself can be moved and adjusted up, down and sideways. I feel like it’s a got a cute, little human-like quality to it, don’t you think? A bit like the dancing Anglepoise lamp at the start of Pixar films.
I styled the Noc lamp together with a similarly faceted porcelain cup, that’s designed to look like folded paper. Its creator is Dutch design duo Scholten & Baijings, who have also designed the colourful tea towels and duvet sets for HAY, among other items. The Paper Porcelain range was first created in 2009 directly from Scholten & Baijings’ folded cardboard models and produced for Tilburg’s TextielMuseum in the Netherlands. The unglazed vessels were even decorated by hand with pencil marks. Now they’re produced for HAY, using specially developed porcelain that mimics recycled paper with its tiny iron specks. Adding to the textures is a small cork box inspired by the shapes of glass lenses and designed by Thomas Jenkins. It also comes in marble, wood and glass.
some of my other top picks:
Left to right, top to bottom: 1: Rectangle contrast cushion, £79, 2: Small cork lens box, £25, 3: Porcelain coffee cup, £25, 4: Curved metal candle holder, £19, 5: Irregular tumbler glasses, £59, 6: Extra small metal tray, £10
To celebrate the collaboration, COS have also worked with HAY and designer Thomas Alonso to create two tables (below) that will be sold exclusively in COS and HAY stores. I love their playful, deconstructed look.
The COS x HAY collection is available to buy in COS London High Street Kensington, Vienna Neubaugasse and Gothenburg with an edited collection available to buy on cosstores.com across Europe.
You can also WIN your favourite things from the new COS x HAY collection on Pinterest. Simply follow COS on Pinterest, create a board with your wish list and start pinning your favourite HAY products from cosstores.com
styling and photography: cate st hill unless otherwise indicated. the items in this post were gifted, all thoughts and opinions are my own.
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