The woman whose shapely buttocks vessels continue to make many a mantel blush (the “Love Handles” vase, £340, resides in the homes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Gwen Stefani, and has been shamelessly ripped off) is, ahem, perking up Borough Market.
Forget the congested streets of Clerkenwell; designer Anissa Kermiche is putting London Bridge on the map for covetable homewares with a new showroom dedicated to her jewellery and viral-sensation ceramics. “I love food!” she laughs of the locale.
A self-confessed workaholic, Kermiche has crafted the loft space into a home-from-home for herself and her dozen employees, hand-picking vintage treasures and calling on a roster of creative friends to add quirky touches — such as ears for cabinet handles.
“My mood is so dependent on what I see around me, so I wanted to make it feel cosy, luxurious and beautiful,” explains the Parisian, who has lived in London for a decade.
There is even a meeting room wrapped in pink, which she takes to calling her bedroom. “You can actually sleep on the sofa,” she chuckles.
Open to the public by appointment, visitors will be able to get up close with the steroid-sized Love Handles vase (which Drake has chez lui) and discover her first foray into chairs.
Sculpted from metal into breasts — and yes, of course, buttocks — they were constructed by an artisan in Bermondsey.
“Metal is quite masculine but it’s distorted and curved in a very feminine way,” she says.
The chairs were born out of necessity: she needed 22 of them to sit around the long, rainbow-gradient table (also made by a talented friend, the furniture designer Elif Erguvan) and couldn’t justify splurging on two dozen designer classics (Kermiche’s business is entirely self-funded).
She is now seeking a manufacturer to produce them commercially.
The serene space is also a showcase for her debut collaboration with her friend, the rug designer Sibylle de Tavernost; and her newest tabletop collection entitled Tit Tea, where sinuous legs form the handles to teacups.
“J’adore les puns!” she says of her products’ witty titles (ergo: the Jugs Jug), and sometimes an irresistible name will inform the design direction.
For example, the “from the bottom of our hearts” range marries pert derrières with hearts into candles and pinch pots as a literal take on the expression.
“I think it’s genetic, because my sister is exactly like that. When people are around us, no one understands because we’re like a pun ping-pong,” she explains.
What is it about the female body that fascinates her?
“My brain humanises everything, like when I see the lights and the number plate on a car, I see a mouth and eyes. Even with my leftovers on a plate, I put two peas for eyes. I have a bit of Peter Pan syndrome, it’s very wonderland [in my head] and still very much like a little girl,” she confesses.
There was no doubt that when it came to launching her eponymous brand in 2016, London would be the place to do it.
“I love the people, I find them really positive and polite. I even love the English weather.”
The pandemic was a boom time for business: from 2020 to 2021 it grew 800 per cent; she has sold more than 200,000 ceramic pieces and her stockists include Net-a-Porter, Matches Fashion, Liberty and Paltrow’s Goop.
But it could have all turned out so differently.
Frustrated by her career in engineering — “I was spending my lunch breaks beading jewellery by myself. I was not really vibing with my colleagues” — she pooled a year’s worth of leave to take a course in jewellery design at Central Saint Martins.
Finding validation through praise from her tutors, she saved up, packed her job in, moved here and hustled until she made it. Born to an Algerian mother, with whom she is close, and a French-Algerian father, who left when she was a teenager, she didn’t have family wealth as a safety net.
Unlike the Paris heiresses trying to conquer the jewellery market, she had zero contacts.
A friend of a friend recommended a jewellery maker to produce her accessibly priced pieces, and it took another two years to find a manufacturer for her vases.
Her innate ability to capture the zeitgeist has changed her fortunes — and the ones involved in bringing them to life; the account manager at the factory supplying the ceramics bought herself a house.
Right now she is exploring her “spiritual side” and working on a line of jewellery incorporating the healing powers of stones.
You certainly won’t find her having a day off and basking in the glory of another A-list client: “Obviously I love celebrities having my things. I’m happy for a couple of hours then I forget. I think about my products, what’s next? How do I keep people interested? I’m always looking for the next thing.”
