Meet the Makers

Happy sunday!

Hope you're all having a lovely weekend and finally we have some sun in London! Let's get those BBQs cranked up immediately before the rain clouds come back. Sundays for me is all about chilling with my fam, stuffing my face and having some down time to read and catch up on myself.

Niko Dafkos and Paul Firmin

I've been busily working away behind the scences on some fun projects and I'm particularly excited about our Candle and Calligraphy workshop with Earl of East London and Quill London 10th July. If you fancy a lovely Sunday getting creative with letter forms and making beautiful smelling candles, with a spot of lunch and wine thrown in then purchase your tickets here before they all sell out. 

I love social media. It's opened so many doors for me and it constantly gives me an abundance of inspiration. I actually started following Earl of East London on Instagram a while back and loved watching them make their dream of setting up a business a reality. Full of passion and community spirit their energy and love for what they do was infectious and helped motivate me to carry on with my dream. So thanks guys and keep up the good work! 

So it's with great pleasure to introduce you to Niko and Paul with a little interview I did with them recently. Enjoy, and I hope you get some inspiration too. 

Tell me how Earl of East London came about?

Earl of East London started out as a joint creative outlet for us. We both loved the idea of starting something of our own and one day we just decided to go for it. We originally started out as a stall selling a curated mix of candles, cacti and curiosities, pulling together all of our favourite homeware items into a single lifestyle stall and it just went from there.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

We have always been inspired by the makers movement in the US, independent craftsmen over there know how to promote themselves as a brand from day one and that was something we really wanted to achieve with Earl of East London.

In terms of our own sent line the inspiration comes from our travel and childhood memories. Scent is one of the brain's most vital senses for memory recall and for us it allows us to tell a story about the things, places or people that mean so much to us.

What's the biggest challenge for you?

Everyday has bought us something new, we balance day jobs with building our own brand, that has sometimes been really tough as it limits any free time. As we have continued to grow we have had to adapt and now as we scale our business we need to look for the right likeminded people to help us get there. You have to put a lot of trust in others to stay true to your vision and whilst it feels like a risk, working with others is very rewarding.

Can you share with us any exciting plans you have for the future?

We are launching two new scents called Strand and Atlas Cedar and we will launch corresponding Reed Diffusers for each scent. In addition to this we have a new studio/co-working space in development, which will help us to take our brand to the next level.

What have you learnt on this journey of yours?

That everyday will post new problems but the fun is in finding the solution. In the past few years we have met and collaborated with some incredible people that have helped us grow and become our professional support network. We are just so pleased we decided to see if we could make our dream a reality.

What's the best piece of advice anyone has given you?

Go with your gut.

Complete these sentences...

My favourite scent is Monocle's Hinoki Wood fragrance because it's so elegant and distinctive.

Our favourite city is London because it's where we met and it's our home, if we had to pick another city it would be LA for sure. It's not the easiest to know but once you have a network there it's a hard city to beat on so many levels.

Our one piece of style advice is to keep it simple, you can't beat a plain T and jeans.

To buy a ticket to the Candle and Calligraphy workshop go here

To follow the boys on their adventure on Instagram click here and be sure to check out their lifestyle shop earlofeastlondon.co.uk or pay them a visit.

Stay curious,

Sommer x