Paul And Niko from Earl of east on using space to create a sense of belonging

Paul Firmin and Niko Dafkos – founders of lifestyle store Earl Of East – are expert curators. So we naturally felt a fizz of excitement seeing our Heavy Light illuminating the ground floor of their new Soho space. Paul had laid our freestanding London cobblestone on its side, a new formation, proof that an object is really what someone wants it to be. The rock can be equal parts weight and platform; something to fix and something to present. This is the power of curation – selecting and presenting objects and reimagining them as a cohesive collection. With Niko in their Leyton HQ and Paul on the shop floor in Soho, we spoke to them about how and why community is so central to their business, what they think about the role of curation in retail, and creating the right space for local designers to interact with bigger brands.

Something that we’ve found so amazing about Earl Of East is how on-the-ground you both are, even though it’s grown so much over the past few years. You’re on the shop floor, you’re chatting to customers, you’re engaging in the community: why is this so important for you and the business? 

Niko: First of all, I don’t think we would be doing it if we weren't enjoying it; we love that human interaction, so it always felt like a good starting point. When we initially started, we wanted to use Earl of East as a vehicle to meet people to find a place in the community, rather than it feeling like just another marketing exercise or a marketing job behind the laptop. We needed the space to offer up an in-real-life experience, which comes with us being in the store, making the candles and being really involved in meeting people. And I think it's important for us to see how our customers experience the store and how they interact with the products on display. I think all of those are very important insights that you just  don’t get when you’re on the other side of the screen, or if you're delegating. You kind of lose touch with the essence of the retail business otherwise. 

Community is clearly really important to Earl Of East. How did you go about creating that sense of togetherness when you were starting out? What do you think it is about Earl Of East that attracts such a sense of community? 

Paul: I think it was always just important for us because there was a need to have a sense of belonging. People always think of us as a community business, and I think part of that is the fact that we as founders are still in the store. But also, we do workshops and events, we collaborate with lots of brands of all different sizes and scales. And I think our storytelling narrative is always about the story behind the brand, or the reason why we're connected to them. Even in-store when anyone on the team is talking about the brands we work with, they’ll tell the personal story and the reason why it sits in the space.

And that feels really central to how you bring both collaborators and customers into the Earl Of East world, too. 

Paul: It’s that idea that when whenever a customer comes into our store we welcome them into our world or into our home, whether that's through simple touch points like having coffee counters, but also just the fact that we speak to everybody. Or that when we create playlists, we want them people to listen to them at home. I think it's just really important when you're building a brand because there are so many faceless DTC brands and  influencer founded brands that don't feel as organic or genuine. And that's never how we've approached it. And I think that's why people still can't believe that Niko or I would be in there – when we have stores in King’s Cross and Regent’s Street – because that's not the norm.

What do you think about the role of curation as opposed to creation? You clearly occupy both spaces, as curators of many other brands, as well as being a brand yourself that makes and sells candles. How do you achieve such a strong sense of brand when you’re bringing different collaborators into your world?

Paul: We never wanted to have a candle shop. We always thought that was quite boring; it’s not how our customer or we ever shopped. When people talk about the return to independent retail, it's this idea of a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker. And I don't think that that's necessarily real. When you think about the wider landscape and what's happened to retail, a lot of the really big players in retail have either disappeared, or are really struggling. And so as a small independent brand, it’s always a question of: where do you go, because the bigger players that still exist always feel quite exclusive rather than inclusive. And then if the high street was just made up of people who sell one thing, then what about everybody else who are makers and creators but don't want to have a retail offering to their business? 

So for us we wanted to work with brands that we admire and that we think are doing something really cool, which then in turn creates a bit of a playing field for our own brand. Who we surround ourselves with is who we aspire to be more like. A customer could come in and only shop Hay with us, but will always associate Earl Of East with that brand. And the same goes for a lot of the more independent, craftspeople who we work with; we really appreciate their aesthetic and their approach to work, and by being part of our world, it helps us communicate the fact that we're not just like this mass-produced brand. Everything we produce is still made by us by hand in East London. And that's why when we work with makers, whether it's Mitre & Mondays or Arma Works for glassware; it helps to tell that story because it creates a world around our own product. And I think that in turn builds a sense of unity.

How do you approach being both an online brand that also has a really strong offline presence? How do you translate that level of curation in the space to your online marketplace?

Niko: I think the experience is a different one: what you create in real life, you can't really replicate online and vice versa. When it comes to the curation, Paul arranges all the displays together in the space, but we're very limited with what we can do online in terms of visual merchandising. However what we can do online is deliver all the added value. So yes, you can buy the nice tableware from us in-store when it's enough to see it, and we can come and talk to you about it. But online, we deliver that through content like recipes or travel recommendations. I think what we try to get across in both spaces is a sense of generosity. We're very generous with our time and our conversations in store; then online, we're generous with the added value that we want to deliver. So if you're not in the market to buy anything, we still want you to walk away with having read a great piece of writing, a good tip or a recipe to cook. 

When you’re researching new brands or designers and makers, what about their story and their objects gets you interested in bringing them into the Earl Of East world? 

Paul: It's usually about connection. With pretty much all of the new designers, artists and makers that we bring in, there's typically some kind of personal connection to them. And that doesn't have to be in real life. With Danny (from Danny D’s Mud Shop) for example, we were following him from when he had about 9000 followers. And because we've got a lot of friends in LA, there was always a bit of a dialogue that then turned into a conversation around stocking his work. And of course it really matters if we like it – not just Nico and I, but the whole team. To be able to sell something or to talk about it or to want to represent it in our spaces, it needs to be something we love. 

Do you feel a sense of responsibility about what you choose to sell and promote through Earl Of East? 

Paul: We have these four pillars of the business that we don’t really talk about but refer back to all the time; it just becomes second nature. So of course we want to work with people who are aligned with our values, but to be totally transparent, there’s also an element at this point that we still need to be commercial. We do represent a curiosity of things, but if none of those things are what people actually want to purchase, we don’t have a business. So one thing drives the other. When you think about our mix that includes much bigger established brands, they share our values, but they're the commercial products within the store. And they allow us to have the stores we have, and allow us to build a world around our product – but also still work with much more independent artisans. 

Niko: And I think it's a very exciting and challenging thing to do to still honour all the artists that you work with, and complement them with the more bigger established brands so that the customer doesn't feel like you're buying this over that.