A stone’s throw from Broadway Market’s small plates restaurants, aesthetic bakeries and Instagrammable florists sits an industrial canal-side yard that was once the beating heart of the east London art scene.
In the early Noughties, Vyner Street in Bethnal Green was a thriving mecca for independent gallerists and up-and-coming artists, many of whom were lured to the area by the promise of cheap rent and big warehouse spaces in which to throw the latest hot-ticket private view.
But rapid gentrification of the area, amplified by the 2012 Olympic Games, forced many of its creative residents to relocate, and the street quickly lost its regular crowd of collectors, hipsters and art students all congregating on the pavement.
Now, a new retail concept is aiming to restore the buzz back to the area by hosting free private views, supper clubs, cocktail evenings and book launches, creating a new third space for the east London design industry.
The Mix is located in a former warehouse
The Mix is a warehouse turned interior obsessive’s dream helmed by the tile brand Bert and May, who have co-curated a distinctly “IRL” shopping experience with ten of Britain’s coolest independent brands. Its founder, Lee Thornley — the man largely responsible for making earthenware tiles trendy again — hopes the venture will become a meeting place for art buffs: “Hackney is a bit of a design centre of London, and this factory is our former home. I used to live on the canal here on a boat in 2013, so it feels very odd to me, walking down the street. It’s a bit more gentrified than it was back then.”
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The destination warehouse brings together British brands that share a love for handcraft and sustainability. These include the Brixton-based kitchen hardware company Pluck, Sophie Cooney — who deals in maximalist weaved stair runners — and traditional toilet purveyors Thomas Crapper, who have been supplying vintage toilet cisterns to the royal family since 1886. Each nook is colourfully sectioned away by paints chosen by Farrow & Ball’s longstanding colour guru, Joa Studholme; the woman responsible for conceiving some of the brand’s greatest hits like Elephant’s Breath and Wimborne White.
Joa Studholme, Farrow & Ball’s colour guru, helped to decorate the interior
Much like a souped-up Ikea showroom, there are interiors show-sets to wander around, helping people who struggle to visualise inspiration online. “If I’m doing anything at home, the first thing I do is make a mood board. This is almost like the physical version,” Thornley explains. “In the centre of the showroom we’re going to have an area called the Play Station, the idea being that you can grab a free tea or coffee, take a tray and build your own board with different paint colours, fabric swatches and hardware.”
The British designer and hotelier dreamt up the idea for the space after stalling demand for Bert and May’s hand-poured tiles encouraged him to think outside the box. “As a brand, we’re not booming in the UK at the moment; we’re actually flat on last year, so we wanted to bring together other makers who stand for the same values as us. It’s very normal to have a fashion department store with lots of different brands under one roof, why not design? We don’t sell kitchens, but our tiles will now sell better because they’re in Puck’s showroom.”
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According to the ONS, UK retail sales volumes fell by 0.3 per cent in December 2024 — part of a wider pattern of weak discretionary spending as the sector continues to battle fragile consumer confidence. “Retail is dying, right?” Thornley asserts. “But maybe it’s dying because we’ve been a bit lazy. If you just make your stores exactly like the website, people will just buy them online instead. We’re saying come and touch, feel and see all the materials together, which is so much more interesting.”
The tile brand Bert and May co-curated the “IRL” shopping experience
Alongside providing creative fuel to the borough’s discerning residents, Thornley and his team are also planning a rolling schedule of design-led events. “This street has always been known for its art galleries, so we’re going to host pop-up gallery evenings where we don’t charge the artists,” he explains. “It’s just a lovely way for The Mix to become a bit of a hub. We’ve already got Pearl Lowe lined up for a talk. I want it to feel quite spontaneous — one month it might be an artist, the next a ceramicist or even a natural wine producer.”
If the format proves successful, Thornley plans to launch The Mix outside the capital. “We’re already planning to open a new site in south London next March, and we’d love to be in other design-conscious cities like Bristol and Manchester.”