"The common thread between the things I do is intense personality" says Henry Holland

Chameleonic British creative Henry Holland is a cult fashion designer turned ceramicist. In this interview, he tells Dezeen why he thrives on evolving and why he wears an Apple Watch that he hates.

Hailing from Ramsbottom, Greater Manchester, Holland did not find a linear route into the fashion industry at the start of his meandering career.

Rather, he used the linguistic skills he honed studying journalism at the London College of Communication to create the "fashion groupies" slogan T-shirts that put him on the map in the early 2000s. The clothing featured playful rhyming couplets about the industry's key players at the time, such as "I'll tell you who's boss Kate Moss" and "Get your freak on Giles Deacon".

"I think they resonated so much more with people because they could see that it wasn't this huge conglomerate trying to monetise the fashion industry," reflected Holland, who at the time was working as a fashion editor at the now-defunct magazine Bliss.

"It was a young kid who had no idea what he was doing," he considered. "It was just making something for his mates to wear at a party."

Party T-shirts quickly turned into global fashion brand House of Holland, which the designer founded in 2008 and helmed until it went into administration in 2020. For the last five years, he has immersed himself in ceramics, selling handmade homeware and lighting from his Hackney-based Henry Holland Studio since 2021.

Holland's current practice is centred on nerikomi – a Japanese pottery technique that involves stacking coloured clay before slicing through its cross-section, revealing a distinctively marbled pattern.

Ceramics are "evolution of Holland's visual identity"

Among the studio's signature works is its stripy art deco mug characterised by a chubby, semi-circular handle – the first piece Holland sold via his Instagram account after discovering the nerikomi technique at home during the UK's first pandemic-induced lockdown.

Earlier this month, the studio released its Galaxy collection of mugs and crockery created from clay offcuts from previous projects, complete with swirly patterns informed by the ancient art of Japanese paper marbling, or suminagashi.

Considering the move from fashion pieces to ceramics, Holland said, "it's an evolution of my visual identity and sensibility".

"The common thread between the things I do is something with intense personality," he continued. "That can be an inanimate object, or a dress, or a piece of clothing."

"One of the biggest compliments I ever got for my fashion work was when somebody described the dresses on the runways as looking like me," said the designer.

"They were like, they just look like you, they have the same personality trait. And I felt that when I saw my ceramic work. The pieces were playful, they were cheeky, they were bold."

Holland explained that a lifelong openness to creative innovation, rooted in childhood, has informed his patchwork career and instilled in him an appetite to switch up his professional medium.

"When my time with my fashion company ended, I didn't necessarily see it as a negative," considered the designer. "I saw it as an opportunity, and I was actually really excited about what it freed up and allowed me to do."

"For me, the switch from fashion was easier, because I didn't study it," continued Holland. "I loved being a designer, it was the most fun I've ever had. But it wasn't as if I woke up as a five-year-old and said 'I'm going to be a fashion designer'."

"I'm a very creative person and I've got millions and millions of ideas in my brain, and wherever they were going to be executed was still to be decided."

Pottery is "therapeutic and meditative"

Holland cited pottery's "cathartic, therapeutic and meditative" qualities as motivations to create ceramics – a growing trend over recent years amongst professionals and amateurs alike. He discovered the medium while considering a move into fashion consultancy.

"It found me at a time in my life when that was exactly what I needed," he said. "The medium of clay forced me to not even think about my phone for eight hours."

"Initially I thought that I could use all of my experience in the fashion world to consult and enter that more corporate space. But I immediately discovered that it wasn't fulfilling enough for me to not be involved in the creative."

Henry Holland Studio has quickly grown to include other homeware such as bulbous table lamps, decorative mirrors and personalised pet bowls, all finished in the designer's marbled style.

"My biggest frustration now that we've built into a business is the lack of time I have to just make," he quipped. "I bought an Apple Watch, which I despise, but it's the only way that I can know I'm getting an email whilst I'm making."

It is not lost on Holland that social media has played a significant role in his success. The designer sold his first T-shirt via a PayPal link on his Myspace account, while his ceramics were launched on Instagram.

"It's an absolute privilege that you have a direct line of communication to a customer, and you're no longer going via magazines or publishing houses all the time," he said. "It's still really important to focus on those elements, but you're able to have a two-way conversation when you're working with social media."

"And it's really important to understand that and to listen to what people are telling you and ask for advice, and ask people what they're liking and not liking, and learn from that."

Holland, who is part of the judging panel for the 2025 Dezeen Awards, considered the complexities involved in being an emerging designer today. He referenced his degree in journalism as an invaluable transferrable skill that has enforced his understanding of the importance of communication around brand-building.

"I think for a lot of young designers, they struggle when they realise that they are manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, content creators, figureheads and in some cases, celebrities. And they're just like, what the fuck? How am I supposed to do all of that?," acknowledged the designer, reeling off more titles – "fundraiser, CFO, accountant".

"Having to get a grasp on all those different facets is really challenging," he added.

"I would really encourage younger creatives to trust the process as much as they can, and recognise when an opportunity that presents itself is right for you," concluded Holland. "Because that's a skill in itself – recognising and understanding things when they appear."

The photography is courtesy of Henry Holland Studio.

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