If you’ve been to a wedding or party in the last five years – or even just walked along a bustling city street – there’s a good chance you’re already familiar with Rixo, the phenomenally popular fashion brand founded by Henrietta Rix and Orlagh McCloskey.
The label’s cleverly cut, vintage-inspired printed dresses have become a mainstay in stylish women’s wardrobes, from actresses Margot Robbie and Sandra Bullock to the Princess of Wales, while their Instagram hashtag #humansofrixo is in almost constant use by tastemakers and influencers alike. Now, the pair are branching out into interiors: Rixo has just released its debut homeware collection, in collaboration with Stockholm-based brand Meli Meli.
‘Orlagh and I met at London College of Fashion and we went to vintage fairs together every weekend,’ says Rix. ‘We have both always been obsessed with interiors, so we gravitated towards the furniture as well as the clothes.’ The duo’s first capsule collection, which is exclusive to Rixo’s stores and Meli Meli’s website, includes a throw, vases, a tray and coasters. It draws on the same winning formula as the brand’s clothing line: bright, whimsical prints cover tactile shapes and materials, all available at an attainable price point (the collection starts at £28).
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‘This collaboration was an extension of the brand,’ says McCloskey. ‘Just as we do when we’re designing clothing, we thought: what would we want in our homes? We were very specific about prints and Meli Meli were great at giving us the freedom to decide exactly what we wanted to do.’ The partnership was a natural fit, she explains. ‘Everyone mixes in our office and it’s one big collaborative hub. Louisa, our head of buying, had a contact at Meli Meli, so it was all organic and easy.’
Rixo began life in 2015, when Rix and McCloskey had just left university. They had no funding or investors and started the brand from their living room, looking to their friends, mothers and older sisters for inspiration. Despite Rixo’s runaway success, the pair are determined that their venture into homeware will follow a similar pattern of gradual growth.
‘We wanted to keep the edit quite tight,’ says Rix. ‘We’d never say never to starting our own extended homeware range, but we wouldn’t want to do anything half-heartedly.’ Her favourite piece from the collection is the set of coasters – ‘I can imagine all my friends wanting those!’ – while McCloskey loves the vases, which have an antique, ‘almost one-of-a-kind’ feel.
Inspiration for new collections comes from sources spanning 1960s wallpaper to the styles worn by actresses in decades-old films. Fittingly, the duo are also influenced by design and architecture. ‘We went to Goa for the weekend and the hotel had these gorgeous iron details of suns and moons, which we factored into our new-season prints,’ says McCloskey.
This instinctive eye for colour, shape and patten has given them the edge in the fashion world and will likely make a bestseller of their homeware collection, too. ‘It’s so nice to have people like what we do,’ they say. ‘We don’t really follow trends – we just do what we love.’ So far, it’s proven to be a recipe for success. rixo.co.uk
