Bridie Hall on A Little Bird - An Insiders Guide to London

Bridie Hall has been a shopkeeper for 13 years, which is two years longer than A Little Bird has been going. In all that time she has never left our radar. Rather like the cool girl a few years’ above at school, we’re always interested in what she’s up to and we’re devotees to her style, collecting her alphabet brush pots and visiting her Rugby Street shop simply to stare. Run alongside best friend, Ben Pentreath, Pentreath & Hall is a treasure trove filled with antiques and artworks and increasingly with Bridie’s own products that are handmade in her workshop just around the corner. The workshop is a magic space brimming with Bridie’s ideas tacked up on a cork board wall, and beautiful objects at various stages of production: lacquer boxes, silk lampshades, oak leaf dishes, pottery bears, intaglio paperweights, and of course her signature brush pots. There’s the sense with Bridie that it’s the process of making rather than the finished product that makes her tick, imbuing her work with invention and originality. This week, as she launches her new collection of brush pots, we talk to her about life behind-the-scenes at Pentreath & Hall.

When did you open the shop?

13 November 2008. It was Ben’s birthday.

How did it come about?

Ben had taken the lease of the shop as an annexe for his architectural office. He thought he’d do a kind of ‘by appointment only’ shop but then he was in New York in John Derian, wishing there was something like that in London, and he had a lightbulb moment.

He thought about you!

No, he didn’t then. But he thought about making a little emporium. He had started sourcing antiques and that sort of thing. I ran into him outside in the street. He said ‘look at the shop I’ve just got!’ and we had a fantasy chat imagining all the things we’d do in it. Then I walked home. It was the best commute ever with all these ideas in my head, and when I got back I emailed him saying ‘was that just a fantasy or can we think about that more seriously?’ and by the morning he was like, let’s do it!

So you and Ben were a team from the beginning?

We did it together from day 1, but I worked for him and we opened as Ben Pentreath Ltd. It was about 2013 when I became business partner, and we became Pentreath & Hall.

What’s Ben’s input in the shop?

He’s so busy in his own incredible career. I do the design and the development and then he comes in later down the line when I get stuck. He’ll come in and give a take on it that means it suddenly starts working.

What were you doing before you opened the shop?

I was a specialist painter. And I was always making, always tinkering away. I had a desk in my flat where I would paint things and make things.

Where does this urge to create come from?

It’s a compulsion. I have to make something every day, even if it’s just a sandwich. My whole life it has been like that.

How did you and Ben become friends?

Ben and I became friends when I was painting a mutual friend’s house. He’d recently moved back from New York and was making friends in London which is quite a rare thing to do as an adult. I was living in Columbia Road then and he would come and visit me and say ‘what are you making? Can I have a look?’ One of the caveats of running the shop was that I had to carry on making.

What did you make to sell?

Well, I taught myself decoupage. That aspect of figuring out how to do something is what I absolutely love. I can be creative but being practical really sets my world on fire. Early on I remember making a plate and putting it in the shop and waiting for someone to come in and trash it. Instead, someone picked it up straight away and bought it. So slowly I got my confidence up, but it took a long time. Like, pathetically long.

How has the shop evolved?

We have gone through a lot of phases. Early on it was kind of padded out. Then we went through a phase of buying the same things over and over. We were losing our way in terms of the curation even though we had begun making money. Then we began selling everything known to man; kilner jars, wooden spoons, sea sponges and urchins. People would come in and be there for an hour just trying to get their heads around it. On the day it became Pentreath & Hall officially in 2013 we launched a range of pattern papers we had designed. We realised the power in our own products and that’s very much the phase we’re in now.

What do you do if your products get copied?

That’s happened once with H&M. I thought long and hard about it, and then I wrote an open letter to the CEO. They responded immediately and recalled all the products within 36 hours.

How did you have the idea for the brush pots in the first place?

We’ve run a pop-up shop next door to Pentreath & Hall for years now, and each time a new person popped up a vinyl sign guy would come and paint their name on the glass window in gold letters. I’d see him all the time. I had been doing decoupage and I wanted to make something 3D. Ben had always been obsessed with font. So I asked the guy for some letters spelling out Bridie Hall with an outline. I did a first round of pots and hand painted every single one. It looked amazing, totally amazing.

How did you perfect them?

I think the most important thing is the proportion. Mass produced things always have no-fun zones meaning you can only print up to 1cm clear of the top and bottom, whereas we can use smaller margins.

When do your new brush pots launch?

They launch this week and will be exclusive to Pentreath & Hall until the new year. We are a tiny team, so we can’t wholesale them just yet.

How difficult is it to keep up with the demand?

Wholesale want new things all the time. But my products are not seasonal or trend-led. It’s a challenge to get from idea to finished product, it takes a long time. Getting things made in the UK is also difficult especially on a small scale and the way that you want it to be made. That’s why I make things myself, in my own studio.

How much time do you spend in the workshop?

I’m there most of the time. At this time of year it’s all hands on deck because of Christmas. The first quarter of the year is about coming up with ideas, brainstorming, designing and prototyping. Towards the end of the year it’s all about making.

What do you do at the weekend?

I rest. I read. I make things. I am very happy in my home, I’m a homebody. I like 1:1 socialising, so I might see someone for lunch or dinner and then hang out with Max, my dog.

Are you a good cook?

I love to cook. I am obsessing right now about making pumpkin ravioli with brown butter and sage. I think that sounds good.

Who are your go-to cooks?

Nigel Slater. Gary Rhodes. And I recently bought Letitia Clark’s Bitter Honey which is so beautifully written, it’s so impressive.