MRS BENNET AND ME
Mrs Bennet's Beginnings
My sister and I grew up in a house of pattern and print; where homemaking (in the very best sense of the word) was a constant adventure. It wasn’t unusual for us to wake in the morning to find the hall painted pink, or a jaunty new wallpaper jazzing up the downstairs loo. Our mother was nothing short of a whizz and a whirlwind when it came to decorating, so it's unsurprising perhaps that we both caught the interiors bug early.
Age seventeen and bored during the long summer holiday, my first foray into design was painting a mural across the wall and over the ceiling of my tiny attic bedroom. I corralled friends, and boyfriends of friends (and boys who wanted to be boyfriends of friends) into helping. It was yellow and red, green, blue and orange. And - in retrospect - quite hideous!
And my mother? Glass of wine in hand as she tolerated the teens trouping through her breakfast room, she allowed me the freedom to shape my own environment and through it to begin to find out who I was going to be.
After university I got a proper job (as we all did in those 90's days) first as a teacher and then, having retrained, as a Barrister. Wig on, I appeared in court rooms arguing cases, wrote opinions and dissected briefs. But, all the while, the stash of Homes and Gardens under my bed grew and I embarked on home renovations as often as my husband could be persuaded to live through the upheaval.
I also began to collect fabrics, buying vintage at antiques fairs, collecting cottons on my travels and ushering them home in my suitcase. It may be my mother's hand in it all, or a touch of nostalgia (some of my earliest memories are of sitting underneath the old Singer sewing machine, tented by fabric, as she ran up curtains from checks or chintz) but for me it's always when the soft furnishings go in that a house truly becomes a home.
In 2017 our family’s move to Singapore brought an end to my lawyering days and left me (as it does so many of us ‘trailing spouses’) with the big and scary question of ‘what now?’ I absolutely knew what I'd love to do; the only question was, was I brave enough to do it.
Five years later, Mrs Bennet was born. A brand that celebrates, in the form of bright and beautiful furnishings, all those things my mother taught me were important- making a comfortable home for your loved ones, embracing your individuality and having some fun with it along the way!
I really hope you find as much joy in Mrs Bennet as I do,
Lucy-Ann x
(p.s. Just until I manage some remotely reasonable photos of myself, please enjoy these of Toffee - our very cute Cockerpoo - instead!)
