Meet the collaborator/maker… Charlotte

How did you come to your career as a maker/designer?

I set up Xavier Britain with my mother when we found we couldn’t find the quality and quantity fine bone china we wanted for our own tables, for dinner parties and for every mealtime. Of course, there is a surplus of antique fine bone china available, but naturally, it’s difficult to replace broken pieces as many of the producers and factories have been lost to history. So, we found a fantastic factory in Stoke that helped us put our own brand of colourful, contemporary yet traditional china through the production line, bringing the quality and beauty of fine bone china to new, younger audiences. Our ware is made up of 50 per cent animal bone at the Walpole Fine Bone China factory, which is a by-product from the local abattoir. This makes the ware very strong and allows us to produce incredibly fine, chip-resistant pieces.

What draws you to the materials you work with?

We wanted to work with bone china because it's very strong and robust despite its fine, almost translucent quality. Our collections are made for family homes, for heavy, everyday use at every mealtime. It is also very beautiful; its physical composition makes it a very bright white colour that allows the other colours we apply to really pop. It is also important to us that we support local employment in Stoke, where they have honed a generational skillset to be preserved.

Why is handcraft important?

Handcraft is so important to the work we do. As each piece moves through the factory, it is touched by 20 pairs of hands. Handcraft also allows for the very best quality control, and every piece passes by a fettler, tasked with the smoothing and perfecting of all our ware. You need people looking at every piece from all angles, running their hands over the finishes to check for imperfections. A single piece of grit in the kiln can destroy a whole rack of ware, so checking these things by eye and touch is incredibly important to the quality of the ware and the success of our collections.

Describe your studio/workshop.

Our factory is family run by second-generation owners. Spread across three storeys, there are areas dedicated to the more industrial process involved in creating the shapes to be decorated in the quieter rooms using hand-banding techniques on pottery wheels. The top floor is for clay filtering, where, every morning, a fresh batch is made. The second floor houses a magical corner dedicated to the recreation of historic items like tureens and candelabras exactly the same way as they were made in the 1810s. Fundamentally, the factory demonstrates a sensitive yet contemporary approach to handcraft, where it is aided by machinery.

Where do you seek inspiration or motivation?

It all started because we couldn’t find what we really wanted on the market. Our inspiration came from the practicalities of having fine bone china in the home, ensuring it was strong, replaceable and functional. Our design principle is really, “would we have this in our own house?”

Where do you see your pieces in the contemporary home?

In the dishwasher. This was the most important part for us when it came to designing the Kelling Collection. We have another collection of more traditional pastels with a golden band that tends to fade over years spent in and out of the dishwasher. For Kelling, we wanted a completely dishwasher and microwave safe collection perfect for family living. Instead of the gold band, we used a colour-on-colour technique that recently won an industry innovation award in the Tableware International Awards of Excellence. To achieve this, we silk screen printed both colours on a decal, which is then hand-applied to the bone china whiteware before we over-paint a matching branding colour.

Any favourite client commissions or projects?

We are so lucky to be able to work on so many exciting projects with a range of diverse clients. A favourite has to be a bespoke commission for Diageo, a producer of beers and spirits, and its restoration of a Brora distillery in Scotland. We created a full dinner service for entertaining private clients at the distillery, which was left untouched for almost 40 years.

We also love working with other designers and are currently collaborating with Kinship Press, a stationery company, on a wood engraving-inspired pattern.

How do you wind down at the end of the working day?

As a business owner, work is personal. It’s hard to fully detach from work in the evenings, but I do love to host dinner parties.

What’s next for you and where can customers find your work?

The best place to find our products is via the website. Next for us is an expansion into a real one-stop-shop for classic, British tableware. We want to educate people about buying ‘for good,’ thinking about their purchases as future heirlooms.