Paul Vincent and Sara Kelly founded S.E.H Kelly three years ago. Sara looks after the design and making parts of the business, and Paul makes the tea. Paul and Sara can be found every weekend at their workshop in East London, where they design and make their incredible clothes that are sold on the premises and in a few shops in the Land of the Rising Sun. Paul very kindly took time out from straining the Typhoo tea-bags (actually they’re in East London so it’s probably Kazakstahn toadstool tea with a splash of eagle milk) to tell us about his current favourite five….
ITEM OF CLOTHING
M&S Long-johns
If Marks & Spencer stands for one thing, for me it is their wonderful long-johns. I favour the supersoft cotton variety, which if I remember rightly are graded with Level 2 warmth. And you would never know it to look at me but I wear them day in, day out, indoors and out, between September and at least April.
BOOK
“For Whom The Bell Tolls” by Ernest Hemingway.
I didn’t have much interest in the Spanish Civil War, and to be honest still don’t, but the clarify and conviction of Hemingway’s basic prose has lodged itself in my head to this day. Someone once said that if you can’t understand what someone’s saying, and they’re not talking about rocket science, then they’re probably full of hot air. These days, with people waffling on about curation this, channeling that, and consumer-connections the other, I hark back to the Hemingway way an awful lot. He was and still is the master of doing a lot with very little (see his six-word story).”
MUSIC
“In a Hole” by The Jesus & Mary Chain.
I like white noise and I spend a lot of time with it. It blocks out other, lesser, noises (like the sound of people talking) and focusses the mind. This is one of the most white noise-y tracks on Psychocandy and so for me is one of the best. There isn’t much melody and the vocals are unintelligible to me, but with white noise this good it doesn’t much matter.
ART
The White House at Chelsea by Thomas Girtin.
This is the picture that hangs in our workshop. Girtin was a watercolour maestro who knocked about with Turner in the 1800s. He died in his early 20s and the White House has to be the pick of a very short career. Calming, serene, and clever, because the bright little white house of the title simply where Girtin left the canvas blank. The poignancy of Girtin’s talent combined with his short life — “if Girtin lived I would’ve starved” said Turner — heaps on a big dollop of whistful melancholy, which I am always drawn to, too.
SOMETHING ELSE
Cooking bones.
I like to cook and my favourite new project is cooking bones and eating the marrow within. I last did it on Sunday just gone and once you get the method right you’re laughing.
1 Comment
Ace answers, what do you eat bone marrow with though? Must be a starter at best.