Home Shopping: Bright, offbeat home accessories at Emma Bridgewater

The designer made a name for herself with chunky, rustic pottery but has expanded into stationery, table linens and storage items.

Starry Skies cases. Courtesy of Emma Bridgewater
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No respectable English country home is complete without a little Emma Bridgewater pottery. For the past 25 years, Emma and her husband, the furniture designer and watercolour artist Matthew Rice, have built up a homeware empire. It is one of the only UK tableware manufacturers to still have a factory in the country.

The Emma Bridgwater look is all bright colours and chunky rustic kitchenware: heavy mugs, big bowls and deep butter dishes. Her signature design, the polka dot, remains a bestseller, but in recent years the collection has expanded to 33 lines, with designs including birds, flowers and hearts.

There is also much more than just pottery in her online emporium these days. You'll find melamine picnicware, stationery, aprons, tea towels and fun storage items like her set of Starry Skies cases. Because her designs span all departments, you can coordinate all over the house if that's your thing. Tableware can match your tablecloth, or a mug can match your oven gloves.

Occasionally Emma steers away from farmhouse chic and produces more offbeat, witty pieces such as her bestselling slogan tea towel, which reads: "I had a really nice dream last night about Daniel Craig."

We really love her vintage-style swooping swallow design (seen here on a cushion) and her new range of bed linen, launched this month. Serious Bridgewater fans should also check out her limited-edition polka dot Aga. It's fabulous but fabulously expensive, of course.

A selection of Emma Bridgewater products are available at Harvest Home in Dubai. To see the full range, visit www.emmabridgewater.co.uk.