The Love Milo Brand:
Love Milo is a boutique home ware and design studio that focuses on sustainable,unique and contemporary African designs that are created using the shapes and forms of nature and then combine this with high quality, locally produced materials. The products are mostly manufactured in their own studio. #ProudlySA
Love Milo designs are all inspired by the harmony between line & form found in nature and are created using either photographs of natural images or drawings, not computers, its all about replicating the imperfection that reflects nature.
Love Milo places a strong emphasis on sustainability on a personal level and as a brand. All their beautiful wooden products are made using only sustainable wood, which is sourced through the alien clearing of trees that are harmful to the natural South African environment, which are mostly blue gums. These trees need to be removed in order for the natural vegetation to exist so taking them out is vital for the survival of the local fynbos.
They use only eco-friendly inks in our printing techniques and locally source their materials. Everything from the base fabric to the printing is made locally and then sewn by Love Milo in studio.
Love Milo Beginning:
The company was started in 2013 by founder and co-owner Nicki Ellis. Nicki has been in creative environments most of her life, yet always holding great ideas and visions for a brand of her own. Many of those creative years were spent working as a film colour grader and photographer, but she never felt satisfied as she always felt as though she was working on somebody else’s vision, a realisation which tends to stunt any creative process.
While pregnant with her first son, Nicki was suddenly overcome with a sudden feeling of mortality, “it was a catalyst for me to live in integrity with myself and be a role-model for the people I now would leave behind”. She began to find inspiration everywhere from the simple, yet wonderful things in life. In face she had so many ideas and images flooding her creative brain, Nicki felt as though they were actually coming from the infant inside her. And so her love for Milo, the little growing boy in her belly, also brought life to Love Milo. But creative epiphanies are never that clear cut and sometimes it’s more about trusting the whim, the gut and the intuition fluttering inside you, like a steady heartbeat, whispering ‘yes’.
“To be honest, I didn’t really know what I was going to make, I just quit my job, rented a studio and started making things I liked. I used my photography in my work but started experimenting with ways of bringing it off the walls and frames onto more three-dimensional spaces that could be used in daily life so ceramics is where I started.”
Two years ago Nicki met her personal and business parter Matt Finch, who, having worked for 10 years as a chef at many great restaurants like Kloof St House and Cape Grace, just to name a few, was ready to find a new way of living ,that was away from the 24 hour, 7 day a week life that he had been living for so long. Be careful what you wish for they say! They were very quickly and unexpectedly blessed with a beautiful baby boy named Mason - so he basically swapped sleepless nights for more sleepless nights! (Joys of Parenthood hey!)
Matt was meticulous in his work in the kitchen and a perfectionist in production, which he brings though into the production of the Love Milo products, a part that Nicki was unable to oversee, “When you start a business you just do what you love, you don't foresee all the underlying things that end up consuming your business, and ultimately take up all the time you created the business for in the first place.”
Love Milo now has a a left and a right brain in terms of business & Design, and they hope to create and grow to be an African brand that reflects this country in a way that makes us as South Africans truly proud! where we don't have to look to other countries for inspiration, but rather other countries look at us! Where we utilise the amazing crafters we have in a contemporary way, that moves them away from the usual, cliche curios and rather into contemporary design.
This all-round magnificent brand recently sponsored me with the most amazing snack bowl set - consisting of 3 porcelain bowls and 1 large wooden platter. The quality and precision is out of this world. I absolutely love the fern design (def my fav) as it is so incredibly unique, as is all the products and designs available at Love Milo. I am definitely going to have to stock up on the rest of the fern range - including cup & saucer sets, nifty storage jars, simplistic milk jug, the sweetest little sugar pot, a fern tote bag and LOTS of cushions.... I may just become a little obsessed!
If you'd like to learn more about Love Milo or purchase some goodies then head on over to their website here! You can also pop over to their Facebook Page here and Instagram here.
