What's in your bedroom?

Photos:  Olivia Howitt

What does your bedroom say about you? Olivia Howitt’s photographic project explores this most intimate of spaces

Like many good ideas, Olivia Howitt’s What’s in Your Bedroom? project came out of a conversation with her friend. “He told me about a girl he met at a friend’s shared house in Hackney – they were talking about bikes and she invited him to see her bedroom. She had bicycles filling every available space, on the floor and hanging from the ceiling.” Olivia was struck not only by the girl’s passion but that she only had one room to house it. “I started to think about what goes on in people’s bedrooms, other than the obvious...”

Her project is a visual demonstration of just how many things are going on in people’s bedrooms, from side projects to main jobs, and how even the smallest of spaces can be used in a creative way. As Olivia describes them, they are “small museums exhibiting moments of their inhabitant’s life in objects”, each capable of telling “short stories about our lives”.

Ellie_3.jpg

While our bedrooms became our realms as teenagers (as in the marvellous example of Ellie May O’Sullivan, pictured) that experience is prolonged in London, where Olivia has shot the majority of the rooms, where housing costs are likely to mean shared accommodation well into your twenties at the very least. That was Olivia’s experience when she moved to the capital from Manchester, going from her own house to “all of a sudden, my whole world contained within my bedroom.”

Across the array of tastes and styles of bedrooms Olivia has had the privilege to photograph, there’s a common link, and one that’s not linked to their inhabitant’s taste or budget. “For me they have soul. I’d always want my bedroom to have soul”.

Ellie_4.jpg

 

See more of Olivia's bedrooms at whatsinyourbedroom.com and @whatsinyourbedroom. You can snoop inside three more bedrooms in issue 40 of Oh Comely, out now

Ellie_2.jpg

Ellie May O’Sullivan, student

“My bedroom is an area that is completely my own, so it’s a place where I can relax, listen to music, draw and express myself. My mum and sister have always collected things and I guess I’ve followed the family trend. There are so many things I love in my room and it’s so hard to pick a favourite – in a fire, I’d probably be burnt to a crisp trying to decide what to save – but definitely one is my small vintage Steiff penguin, Peggy, who’s a bit tatty round the edges but is really cute and fuzzy.”

More curious things: Magic

Our latest issue is dedicated to all things magic and you can see some of the products that inspired us on pages 14 and 15. There are always many more treats we find than we can fit into our pages, so here we're sharing five more favourites (and you can check out some more enchanting pieces here). 

We've fallen in love with the gorgeous compositions of Kansas-based Grace Chin. She describes her work as a search for "pithy, compelling statements that are meant to occupy primarily domestic spaces and serve as daily reminders".  We'd happily look at this every day (and - for more inspiration - check out our feature on digital covens in the issue). 

Witch Bows to No Man wreath, $75, Grace D. Chin

Its glass dome may make it look a bit like a crystal ball but in fact this is a table lamp, ideally sized for a nightstand or a desk. If it won’t help you see into the future, as least it’ll help you see into those dark corners of your room.

Round cloche table lamp, £140, Urban Outfitters

It's hard to resist the old-fashioned charm of this fortune dispenser, promising 100 tickets of "advice, mysterious quips and daily fortunes". Don't bamboozle yourself by pulling out five at a time. 

Fortune Dispenser, £6.95, Rockett St George  

We're huge fans of the work of the Strange Women Society (you can see another of their designs within the magazine, and they designed our special subscriber print). No surprises then that we'll be wearing these enamel pins with pride.  

Strange Women Society Initiation Pin, $10, Strange Women Society 

This Tisty Tosty bath bomb has a wonderful story to contemplate while you soak - it's based on a medieval love potion. Containing real rosebuds, it's scented with floral orris root powder, rose, and lemon. Geranium, jasmine and rose help create a spellbinding fragrance, while rose oil also gets to work soothing broken hearts - it’s used by aromatherapists to lift the spirits.

Tasty Tosty bath bomb, £3.50, Lush

 

Order a copy of the Magic-inspired Oh Comely issue 33.