It’s official, 50′s style home shopping is back.  Remember the days of Avon, well now it’s Jamie at home parties!  The company launched in March 2009 and now has 2,700 consultants across the UK and this figure is increasing all the time-quite commendable in times of a  recession.  The amount of people who have attended parties to date has reached a whooping 260,000!  It seems people can’t get enough of the home shopping experience and and I can kind of see why.

First and foremost, the products are stylish and functional and start from as little as £5.  You are able to shop at your leisure in a relaxed surrounding (i.e your friends livingroom!), and finally, you can do all of this whilst enjoying a glass of wine with your friends-perfect!  Anyone for a Jamie party?!  And if you were to consider working for Jamie as a consultant, you then have the advantage of flexible working hours and as a working mum, I know this is an attractive option.

We spoke with Jamie Oliver’s team and asked them about the range and this is what they had to say…

• What made you want to design this range and who or what inspired the new additions?

The brand and therefore the products start life based on Jamie’s values and his passion for food, entertaining and spending time with friends and family. We are only one year old so the additions to the range are always evolving and developing, but are mostly inspired by Jamie, the designers we work with and our customers. We draw a lot from the people around us and who we sell to.

• What would you say is the most essential item for the summer kitchen?

For the kitchen indoors I would go for the Cast Iron Griddle Pan. It’s quick, easy and healthy cooking for meat or vegetables. Using very little oil you can griddle meat and vegetables in minutes.  For outdoor cooking, the right BBQ tools are a must to make the job easier. They are a serious set of BBQ tongs and a great set of skewers.  The double pronged ones are best.  They make it much easier to turn your food without it spinning.

• Being able to use it indoors and outdoors makes the new cast iron griddle perfect for British summer BBQs. Do you have any other solutions or top tips for the perfect BBQ?

Great marinades, dips, sauces and relishes. One of the great things about BBQ’s is that everyone can get involved – from laying the table to tuning the meat. It’s informal dining at its best.

• Have your travels around the world influenced your thoughts on essential kitchen items? If they have, can we see this in the new range?

Essential kitchen items are those that are essential to the way and what you cook, which differs in each food culture.  Anything that makes a job easier is always an inspiration but it’s not necessarily an essential.

• You have a new kitchen scent collection inspired by herbs, how would you say this affects the atmosphere in the kitchen?

Fragrances are for enhancement, creating a mood or hiding kitchen smells.  I would say the fragrance ticks all those boxes.

• What is your must have herb you could not live without?

Sage is my absolute favourite but I use parsley the most.

• Apart from the scent range, how do you bring the outside indoors with your cooking?

Fresh fruit and vegetables and lots of it. Picked fresh from your own garden if you are lucky to have one is the best.  From local markets is just as good. The flavours can be extraordinarily good. Growing herbs indoors is an obvious one, but as rewarding as the cooking itself.

• What advice would you give to people wanting to improve their cooking skills?

Apart from having the right equipment which is a must, practice and experimentation are essential.  A good grounding in basic skills like knife skills, really do make a difference.  Recipease run great knife skills courses.

• Do you have any storage solution tips when it comes to kitchens?

It’s very tricky as many of the products that take up the space are those that hold volume, so you are storing a lot of air.

There are lots of space saving products on the market from bowls and food storage boxes that slot inside each other to foldable chopping boards to cookware with detachable handles.  Most people however have kitchen equipment that has evolved with them over their cooking ‘careers’, that become loved and cherished favourites.

My suggestion would be to keep it simple and have clear outs every now and again.  Stick to your essentials and those items that you have grown to love, cherish and enjoy using.

• How much of your own kitchen can be seen in the new range?

Lots. I love cooking.  My own kitchen is made up of practical but beautiful products.  Practical shapes, an array of solid wooden chopping boards that will last and age with use.  A real mixture of contemporary and old country pieces.

• Any plans for more kitchen essentials?

Oh yes.

Below are are a selection of the new products:

For further information on Jamie’s products or to hold a party then call 0844 871 2010 or visit: Jamie At Home

Interview conducted by Liz Danon and questions answered by Zoe Jackson, Head of Buying for JME Lifestyle.

Zoe Jackson, Head of Buying for Jme Lifestyle

What has influenced your flamboyant design throughout the years?
Well, flamboyance! I love the term flamboyance, it’s a word that actually weirdly means something very specific in an architectural context; it means a flaming arch, derived directly from French gothic architecture. It’s such a great word, it’s got a wonderful rhythm to it. My inspiration is feel-good design, it’s feel-good design with a good healthy dose of bump and grind to it. I like things to be grown-up, sexy, fun and exuberant. I don’t like things to be understated. I hate roundhead designs, it’s cavalier designs that make me get up in the morning.

How have you created a range that is individual to Matalan?
Every collection has a very strong identity to it. The first collection was called Black Chateaux, then we had Hollywood Rose, we’ve now got Opera and I’m working on Tsar at the moment, and I think that’s pretty critical to the fact that they work so well. It’s that I approach them as haute couture products. They are about expressing a very particular fantasy, if you like. Everything in each collection is there as part of an interior lifestyle jigsaw that’s happening in the back of my mind, that conjures up a particular association. So at the moment with the Opera collection everything is about femininity, it’s about theatricality, it’s about making big emotional statements, all to the background of extraordinarily big bad beautiful music.

Who is your favourite designer?
Nicky Haslam.

What are your tips for 2010 interior design?
Assemble your room like you assemble your outfit, so take bits from all over your experience. Buy stuff at airports, get stuff on holiday, go to car boot sales, go to the sales. Buy expensive things and put them next to very accessible affordable things from my range at Matalan. But have an overwhelming idea of identity behind it. Who do you want to be through your interior? Do you want to be an opera diva, do you want to be a Tzarina, do you want to be a Hollywood movie star? Express a personality through interior decoration.

How do you feel you have made your mark/ influence on your range for Matalan.
Everything I’ve got in the ranges has my design DNA in it and this is one of the reasons that I love working so closely with the team at Matalan – I’m encouraged to leave my mark, there’s no hint of what I do being ‘em-beiged’ by the buying or design teams, it’s intensified almost.

What is your favourite room in the home to design and why?
I love bedrooms because I think that they are a inner sanctum.

How do you gather daily inspiration?
I think that the secret of design is to be constantly aware of what surrounds you and remember it. I’m very lucky; my greatest resource is having an extremely good memory. I can remember architectural details, I can remember colours, elements that then sit around in the bouillabaisse that happens between my ears and occasionally randomly things float to the surface in the most odd and unusual combinations, that then become the basis of a new creative idea.

How do you collate new ideas?
The secret is not to control it or deliberately collate it. It’s not to see something and say right I’m going to do that, or right I’m going to be inspired by that, or indeed right I’m going to copy that. Actually the best thing you can possibly do is to be constantly inputting down loading information and just leaving it to ferment in your torpid imagination until it becomes pure grains of booze.

What has been your favourite design project?
It’s always the one I’m working on.

What was your inspiration behind the collection?
I take my inspiration for each collection from different areas of my cultural life. It’s also a lot to do with the way people are feeling about themselves. We’re about to move into a phrase for spring/summer where people are wanting to be a lot more exuberant with the way that they decorate their homes and also the way they entertain. It’s not about spending money, and this is the big joy with Matalan, that it’s not about the money – it’s the design. By the time we get to autumn/winter I’m creating this personality, this identity based around the doomed, decayed, decadent but extraordinarily beautiful world of the last Tzars in Russia. Imperial Russia with its sparkling jewel colours and heavy ornate patterns I think is perfect for autumn/winter 2010.

How are they such good value?
The economies of scale and the very intelligent clever buying principles means that these things can be created at very little cost. We use a lot of modern technology, we use a lot of modern materials to give a grand historical style, the kind of availability and accessibility that people want at out price point.

What would you say is your all time favourite design piece?
The Great bed of Ware in the Victoria & Albert Museum.

What is the most expensive item you’ve bought?
That’ll be a 17th Century manor house.

Have you ever made any major design faux pas
Yes but I’m not owning up to any of them!

Interview by Elizabeth Danon

Claudia is the new face for American Express Richer Rewards card and during the informal breakfast we chatted to Claudia (who is exactly as you would expect her to be, very funny and warm) about the new card whilst getting an insight into her busy life.  As you can imagine, there were lots of questions about Claudia’s sense of style and ‘Strictly’ before we got to talk about the card…

Who is your favourite to win the show? “I love them all and would be happy for any of them to win”

Then it was on to her amazing sense of style and ‘who she was influenced by?’ “My style hero is Chrissie Hynde, we have a fantastic stylist on the show and I told her that I wanted to look like a mix between Chrissie and Kate Moss”.

Who styles you hair?  “A guy called Michael, he has been doing my hair for ages and tries to give me the messy ‘shag’ look – her actual answer was a bit more graphic and not something that I can really write on the blog but I am sure you get the picture…

Where do you shop for your clothes?  “I love the high street, especially French Connection and Topshop.  As I get so many enquiries about the clothes I wear on the show, I think it’s really important that the viewers are able to go and purchase the items.

Are you worried about ageing?  “Not at all, as the people that have really influenced me in my life are older and so that is something to embrace rather than shy away from”.

What’s the secret of your diet?  “I don’t really have one as I do eat what I want and I don’t have a fast metabolism!  I tend to eat lots of low calorie snacks such as Prawns, twiglets and lots of sushi”.

How do you find the balance of being a working mum and having a busy career?  “I love it but it is a juggling act.  I just make sure that I am there for the children; breakfast is always an important time with the family”.

What is your interior style?  “I loved all things that have a washed out look, things with a really pale feel.  Cath Kidston is a favourite.  I guess it would be called a Shabby Chic look”

How did you become the face of the Richer Rewards Card?  “It was a simple decision for me really.  I like to shop and if I can use a credit card that earns me points from favourite stores then that’s a great thing.  My £1′s convert into points and once these have built up I can then redeem them at participating stores.  The other thing (which we thought was great) is that Amex have a 90 day return policy and better still you don’t need to take the item back to the store.  You just return it to Amex and they will do if for you!

GIVEAWAY!

In  the next few days we will be running a competition for one of our lucky readers to win all of Claudia’s hand picked homeware products (image to the left) from participating Amex stores.  Keep checking the blog for your chance to win!

What was your inspiration behind your new Ports Of Call paint collection?

I always approach my design research in the same way.  Twice a year I create my ‘Style Look Books’ using tear sheets, colour samples combined with inspiration from fashion and travel.   My designers around the world eagerly anticipate the books as it is what we all draw inspiration from for the fashion collections.  I then produce 5 key themes a seasons which give me ideas on a range and I will work on spring 2010, winter 2010 and spring 2011.  I then apply the same process when it comes to my homeware collection.  Finally, I will play around with the 5 looks on my studio table and from that paint up around 50 colours for my paint collection on A4 sheets, I will then re-access until I have whittled the colours down to 36.

Above is Jeff’ Banks latest Ports Of Call paint collection

What predictions have you got for forthcoming colour trends?

Recently we have seen a fantastic return to colour and print and the great thing is now that clothes are more affordable people are more inclined to experiment with the bright colours.  It’s the difference of spending £20 on a garment as supposed to £2,000 on a designer item.

Are the bright colours here to stay?

The bright colours that we are seeing such as Lime and Fuchsia I predict will be around until at least 2011.  The beauty of these bright colours is that they can be used with classic ‘off white’.  I will certainly be using them in my fashion collection up until 2011.

The above image features Jeff Banks new paint collection Ports Of Call

I like your idea of painting the home one colour to achieve a sense of continuity and flow.  That said; I know a lot of designers homes are white – mine is! What colour is your home?

Our home is painted one colour throughout.  It’s a soft putty colour from my Lazy Paint range.  We live in a classic 17^th century home that was built in 1695 and so it was fun to decorate.  My wife and I have slightly different tastes when it comes to home decor but we have come to a happy compromise where some rooms are ‘Jeff’ rooms and some are ‘Sue’ rooms; it works very well.  Our living room for example (a Jeff room) is all white, from the sofa right through to all the soft furnishings but then next door we have another sitting room that is adorned with Klimt upholstery ( a Sue room) – it’s fantastic!  There is one room in the home that we have transformed from white into a fabulously rich red.  We use it as our  dining room.  It’s full on and even though we don’t use it that often it’s great for entertaining; especially at Christmas time.

What is your interior style?

I would say my Interior style at home is contemporary and modern.  The most important thing to me is that people are comfortable in our home without worrying about making foot prints when they come through the door.  Whereas my studio is much more clinical, almost like an operating theatre!  It needs to be like this as it acts as a good backdrop to my designs and doesn’t interfere with any colours or looks I might be developing.

What is your favourite interior item at home?

It would have to be my Anglepoise lamp.  In my opinion, a great design is something that can stand the test of time and this certainly has.  Designed in around 1933, the Anglepoise lamp has been sympathetically modernised over the years to fit in with the current market.

What would you never leave home without?

A pair of Jeff Banks pants!!

Credits

The Ports Of Call paint Collection has just launched in Focus DIY stores nationwide, www.focusdiy.co.uk Retail Price is £19.99 for Matt Finish, £21.99 for sheen, both available in 2.5 litre tins

For more information on Jeff Banks visit his website at www.jeffbanks.co.uk

This interview was conducted by Pippa Jameson