Diego Ordóñez
Casa Ordóñez · Oaxaca, MexicoThird-generation potter working a wood-fired kiln his grandmother built. Throws every dinner set and serving piece we carry by hand.
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About Forme
A small company in east London, working with six makers who still shape things by hand.
Free UK delivery over £120◆Handmade in small batches◆30-day returns◆Six independent maker partners◆Carbon-neutral shipping◆
The beginning
Started with one bowl that would not chip.
Naomi Reyes founded Forme in 2016 after a decade buying homeware for restaurants, where the difference between a plate that survives a commercial dishwasher for five years and one that does not is the difference between profit and constant re-ordering. She started asking the same question of her own home: why did nothing sold to consumers seem built with the same intent?
The first product was a single stoneware bowl, thrown by a potter she had met sourcing for a restaurant in Oaxaca. She sold two hundred of them out of a rented studio flat in Hackney before Forme had an office. Nine years later, the company works with six maker partners across four countries and ships from a small warehouse in Hoxton.
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The peopleSome of the
Some of the
hands behind it.
Anaïs Verel
Maison Verel · Normandy, FranceRuns her family’s linen mill, weaving long-fibre French flax on looms that have been in continuous use since 1958.
Rosa Elgueta
Telar Norte · Ovalle, ChileLeads a weaving cooperative of eleven artisans working undyed merino and alpaca fibre sourced within a hundred kilometres.
MaterialsWhat things
What things
are actually made of.
Stoneware
Fired to 1,240°C for a dense, chip-resistant body. Our reactive glazes are hand-mixed from lime and wood ash, which is why no two pieces ever finish quite the same.
Linen
Long-fibre European flax, stonewashed rather than chemically softened. It starts a little stiff and only gets better — softer, drapier — with every wash.
Wool & alpaca
Undyed where possible, so the colour comes from the fleece itself. Sourced within a hundred kilometres of the mill that spins and weaves it.
Alabaster & bronze
Carved from solid Volterra alabaster and sand-cast in small-batch bronze foundries — techniques largely unchanged in a century.
What we hold to
Four values.
01 · We visit before we buyEvery maker relationship starts with a workshop visit, not a sample box. If we would not want to work there, we do not carry the work.◆
02 · Slowness is a featureIf a faster process would make the object worse, we keep the slow one. Wood-fired kilns and floor looms are inefficient on purpose.◆
03 · No dropshipping, everEvery object in the shop is warehoused, photographed and shipped by our own team. We have never listed something we have not held.◆
04 · Fair, not just cheapWe pay our makers before the season’s orders ship, not after, so cash flow risk sits with us instead of a small workshop.◆
Come see the
range in person.
We keep a small showroom by appointment in Shoreditch, or find a stockist near you.
Find a stockist