A long-haired figure dressed in a gown made of pink quilted material stands in a field of grass.

The Hermit, Sarah Randall, 2024 BA (Hons) Costume for Performance, London College of Fashion, UAL

University of the Arts London

UAL Showcase Collections

Home (dis)Comforts

A chair crafted from dark wood with gold detailing next to a sphere shaped lamp on a matching side table.

A 3-piece furniture collection that builds on the craft heritage of Zimbabwean headrests.“When I saw Sleeping Forms, I thought, wow, this is V&amp;A standard. Vuyani Matibiri has clearly thought carefully about the 3 pieces and their relationship to each other. The lamp’s gorgeous golden glow and the gold detail on the wood adds to the warmth of the pieces, while the harmony between them creates a sense of cosiness and comfort. The designer speaks so eloquently about spirituality in furniture and how design links with ancestry, a way of speaking back through time. There is comfort in looking to the past.”  – Sonia Solicari, Director, Museum of the Home

Sleeping Forms

a single-seater ottoman - boasts a mustard upholstered seat and a curved body that exudes visual warmth and welcome, inviting users to unwind.﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿

A furniture collection responding to conversations with members of the Naga community, who live nestled in the remote hills of northeast India.“Folklore and myth, which Shivangi Vasudevawhich mentions, straddle the line between comfort and discomfort. The horizontal design of the pieces brings us closer to nature, aligning designed form with natural form. I thought that was an interesting angle. At Museum of the Home, we think a lot about how we comport ourselves within the home, whether we are upright or laying down, how changes in dress affect the way we move through domestic space. Shivangi’s use of storytelling to question what is familiar, what is othered and what makes us comfortable, is another strength to this project.” – Sonia Solicari, Director, Museum of the Home

The Alchemy of our Fibers

This low coffee table stands on rectangular legs, with a square-shaped tabletop featuring intricate wood carvings and a rattan magazine rack.

A handcrafted wooden coffee table, incorporating intricate carvings to showcase authentic South Asian patterns.“A beautifully made table where you can have a cup of tea and read a book. I’m interested in those elements of relaxation that continue to resonate in a digital age so with this, the integrated magazine rack shows that we still find comfort in reading printed material. We talk about ‘curling up with a book’. We don’t talk about curling up with Instagram. Although we probably do that more often, it’s not posited as the dream. There is something quite traditional about this piece but in that also quite subversive.”  – Sonia Solicari, Director, Museum of the Home

Celebrating Craftsmanship

A dish rack that turns the mundane activity of dishwashing into an extraordinary experience.“There is a comfort to be found in those domestic tasks that we do all the time like washing dishes. We’re all familiar with the drying rack. This project subverts that by elevating it, ‘unveiling the extraordinary’, asking why we don’t think about chores like this and what they mean. Diala El Fil invites us to embrace a degree of consciousness, and presence in our domestic rituals that we do daily, sometimes several times a day.” – Sonia Solicari, Director, Museum of the Home

Unveiling the extraordinary

A person wearing a white shirt and black trousers is carrying two rolled-up quilts, one turquoise and one lime green, by purple straps. The quilts are

A sustainable, modular, flat-pack sofa tailored for urban nomads.“I love this. There’s something about the quilt form that is so suggestive of comfort and of going inside during the colder months. The idea of the ‘urban nomad’ felt pertinent to now. At Museum of the Home, we’re always questioning what home is. What does ‘home’ mean when you don’t necessarily have a permanent space to live? How is home changing in an age of climate crisis? Yorgan seems to offer real comfort and positivity in an idea of home that circumvents the obsession with homeownership.” – Sonia Solicari, Director, Museum of the Home

Yorgan

The image shows five small ceramic bowls or cups in pastel colors (light blue, pale pink, white) with marbling effects on a white background. 

Ceramics collection inspired by Kosovo&#39;s coffee culture from the late &#39;90s, where underground coffee shops became the cultural hubs.“While the statement for Një Kafe references drinking coffee out, this collection of beautiful ceramic pieces could absolutely be used at home. The incorporation of thermal insulation to keep your coffee warm for longer made me think of the gesture of cradling a cup in your hands. The photographs made me want to reach out, pick them up and hold them. There’s such comfort in a hot drink and in how we design for warmth.”  – Sonia Solicari, Director, Museum of the Home

Një Kafe

A cross stitch embroidered sampler depicting a heron with devore style border and a bright pink outline

Textiles collection inspired by 18th-century hand stitched embroidered samplers, diary keeping and documentation of emotions and feelings of women through adolescence into adulthood. “Samplers have an enduring popularity because they tell stories. Historically, samplers were made by someone, usually a woman, as Ruby Smith says, moving from adolescence into adulthood, and they are a wonderful snapshot into a life, often passed down generations. We’re lucky to have a marvellous collection of samplers at Museum of the Home. There’s comfort in the idea of the past and of diary keeping, of documenting one’s own experiences in a way that you live with – because samplers were often displayed on walls. Here, Ruby Smith has translated that idea into rugs that look both comfortable and sumptuous.”     – Sonia Solicari, Director, Museum of the Home

this all too familiar feeling

three textiles depicting textured wool notches

Maison/0 Green Trail 2024

Textile collection exploring the intersection of wellness, material exploration, and environmental stewardship. Inspired by remnants of extinct species displayed throughout London.“With Gone with the Dodo, we’re really leaning into comfort and discomfort because the project tackles some extremely uncomfortable truths around humans’ environmental impact. It asks the question: how do we live with the discomfort of what we have done to the planet while also getting on with things? There is really something interesting about this work that seems so lovely and warm but brings up serious, challenging issues.” – Sonia Solicari, Director, Museum of the Home

Gone with the Dodo

A wardrobe made out of a rebar framework and see-through fabric walls with clothes inside, in an empty room with windows.

Post War Drobe reimagines Polish design history, envisioning an alternative reality where postmodernism had the chance to exist.“This project takes us into the realm of the unheimlich, a surreal and unnerving psychological space. The wardrobe is an iconic piece of furniture, from its appearance in fairy tales to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, it is seen as magical but also as spaces of comfort, womb-like. Children use them when playing hide-and-seek. You hide your secrets in them. They’re also seasonal – you keep your warm clothes there and then get them out for the winter. Amid all of this, Maria Gil offers an alternative history of wardrobes through ideas around Polish design and the direction it could have taken. A poetic, retro-futurist piece on the boundary between comfort and discomfort.” – Sonia Solicari, Director, Museum of the Home

Post War Drobe

A chair (made of a black metal rod) with two circular frames behind it designed to carry an Islamic prayer mat horizontally. The chair's base is craft

A chair that features a prayer mat at its back, embodies the Arabic tradition of providing a praying corner as a form of hospitality.“I like the way this piece considers the role of the guest. At a time of year when the weather is getting colder, we might be welcoming other people into our homes as opposed to meeting them out and the consideration given to the needs of those entering your domestic space is altruistic and beautiful. In this context, comfort is not about your own comfort but about making someone else feel comfortable in your space. The focus Tiara Rabbat gives to that is lovely.”  – Sonia Solicari, Director, Museum of the Home

   ها وسهلاً (Ahla w Sahla - Welcome)

Now you see me product placed on the wall of a living room.

An alternative clock that uses movement to show the passage of time, its forms pulsing open and closed over an hour.“Time and clocks can be both comfort and discomfort. Since clocks became commonplace from the 19th century – depending on your circumstances, earlier if you were wealthy – we have increasingly managed our lives through time, both inside and outside the home. There is comfort in that, because it’s always there. But it can also be the thing that is always niggling. Are we doing enough with our time? How do we make the best use of something that is always slipping away? Now You See Me is a positive and poetic intervention, thinking about how we can look differently at a clock. The presentation of time is more visual than numerical. Tasnia Zaman has explored how design can create comfort through a crucial element that not everyone thinks about.”   – Sonia Solicari, Director, Museum of the Home

Now You See Me

Door: the hub that connects our world to the other world.

“In the winter, we tend to think about the role of the ancestor, through festivals that happen across cultures, whether pagan practices or more formal religions occasions. There are different ways to think about guests or about who lives with us. Many people think of their homes as a place that includes loved ones that have passed away. HI, WELCOME TO MY HOME looks at how we welcome and create space for them. A beautiful piece to consider at a time when we feel this most acutely.” – Sonia Solicari, Director, Museum of the Home

HI, WELCOME TO MY HOME

Tufted table in hues of deep oranges and yellow, with long loops of yarn hanging underneath. Upon the table is a ceramic feast 

Fine art sculptures that unravels the interplay between memory, home and the emotional bond that the artist feels toward the Cornish landscape.“Holly Palmer mentions the uncanny and the sense of unheimlich certainly comes through in Feeling at Home. Though the medium of textiles and embroidery has a sense of comfort, there is also a surreal element. The works dig into folklore and myth and how you live with the slightly unnerving aspects of those. Seeing food represented in felt, for example, makes you question something that might symbolise home for you. The work succeeds in turning things on their head, while also feeling very inviting.”  – Sonia Solicari, Director, Museum of the Home

Feeling at Home

The Hermit - Feminine person sat in an open field in an oversized, pink, quilted cloak

Costume design that discusses the search for a space of comfort and clarity in isolation.“I love the tarot card reference that inspires The Hermit. A hermit brings their home and their idea of comfort with them. This taps into the question of how you can withdraw from the world and find serenity in yourself, while still perhaps searching for something. These ideas are evident in the film, the storytelling behind it and in the constructed protected space of the piece itself which makes you think of the hermit crab with its shell on its back, taking its home with it wherever it goes.”  – Sonia Solicari, Director, Museum of the Home

The Hermit

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