Art-based and full of romance, Good Earth’s tableware range Mirage: A Desert Sky, a collaboration between the iconic design house and French-Tunisian designer Thierry Journo, is beautiful. Each piece seems to have a story at heart and is a conversation starter. The Telegraph reached out to Anita Lal of Good Earth and Thierry Journo on the collection and more.
Anita Lal and Thierry Journo
Mirage: A Desert Sky looks absolutely stunning. Mrs Lal and Thierry, how did the collaboration come about?
Anita Lal: As a design house, Good Earth has forged numerous creative collaborations with designers and artists over the years. Having established an India-modern design aesthetic for over 25 years, we look at cross-cultural collaborations as a means to keep our vocabulary vibrant, current, and global, but always through our own design eyes. For our 27th-anniversary design collection Tangier, inspired by the storied legacy of the North African region by the Mediterranean Sea, we partnered with acclaimed illustrator and designer Thierry Journo for a dinnerware collection called ‘Mirage’. He proved to be a serendipitous choice for this project given his French-Tunisian heritage, our shared love of nature and our belief in the artisanal and sustainable way of life.
Thierry Journo: This collaboration was built on a sense of friendship combined with creativity, with both Anita and I working together to celebrate our shared passion for design, history and travel. I knew we could create something really special together. From the initial mood board and sketches to the final details, it was all very open and fluid between the two of us. We wanted to create a collection that was truly unique and brought to life this wonderful image of a desert oasis from our imaginations.
Mrs Lal, what were your pointers like?
At Good Earth, we tell stories about cultures known and less known, bringing the allure of wanderlust into our homes. Through design, we imbue our products with colours and patterns that reflect legends, fantasy, and the romance of a culture. The intention was to bring the allure of wanderlust to dining tables far and wide, which served as the starting point for Good Earth’s annual design collection 2023 ‘Tangier: Odyssey across North Africa’.
Thierry, what were your reference points for the range?
My inspiration comes from Orientalist painters such as Eugène Delacroix to depict a design language that revels in the nuances of detail and careful combinations of colour. For Mirage, I wanted to create a fantastical dream-like setting featuring joyfully striped draped tents, lazing leopards, musicians, dancing palms and lush foliage. I wanted the powdery pastels to collide with bright colours and gold to evoke all the richness and exoticism of a whimsical oasis in the desert, almost like an apparition or a dream.
We absolutely love the motifs. Thierry, can you take us through them?
My childhood memories of the golden sun, blue skies, and abundant wildlife in Tunisia transform into magical motifs that appear in this collection and seem to suspend reality. The synchronicity between Tunisia, where I was born, and Jaipur, where I now live and work, continues to inspire my creative process, which comes through in this collection.
For Mirage, I created illustrations to bring out the magic of a fantastical mirage under the desert sky featuring festoons, musicians, verdant palms and draped tents.
It almost seems like storytelling. Thierry, what are your memories of your favourite dinner-table conversations?
Any conversation on philosophical discoveries, and art history mixed in with some gossip.
Mrs Lal, personally, what’s your favourite table setup like?
Styling your table must spark joy the way the company you dine with does. Dressing the table should be an unexpected visual delight to your own eyes as much as the food that is served. The luxurious place settings of Mirage have been designed as complete sets across six complementing shades of coral, rose, leaf, aquamarine, cerise and turquoise that have endless possibilities for unique table settings which can be mixed and matched based on your personal inclination.
Thierry, talking of table decor, what’s your favourite Indian food?
That is a really difficult question to answer. I have a passion for South Indian food but I also love all Peshawari cuisine.
Mrs Lal, do you see a trend in how younger people are doing up their homes? Is there more emphasis on detail now?
Individuality has become a lot more visible.
Mrs Lal, what’s been the key to sustaining a brand for over two decades?
Through Good Earth I wanted to create a new vocabulary of Indian design that celebrates our cultural heritage, which is one of the most eclectic, diverse cultures in the world, and where artisanal skills ranging from textile handloom weaving and printing to handmade vessels in bronze and clay to hundreds of crafts that continue to be practised through centuries and millennia of unbroken tradition.
We have always maintained a distinct definition of luxury which is steeped in the values of handcrafted design and making conscious choices. This is our path, and we hope to continue this in the coming years too.
Thierry, what from India do you have in your home?
So much! I own some painted Indian sculptures from the 19th century along with some very pretty Indian miniatures. I own a lot of very pretty Indian vases because I have a passion for vases and I have a collection of them through various eras and time periods. I also have a lot of textiles at home. While it’s mostly what I design, they also have a lot of Indian touches. My dream is to one day own a sculpture from the 18th-century Brahmanic period in Jaipur.