Sentimental journey: Pamela Anderson adds furniture design to her long list of talents with a range of natural rattan pieces inspired by her grandmother. The collaboration is with boujie LA lifestyle brand Olive Ateliers.
Lead image: Paige Powell, Lifestyle pics: Michael P. H Clifford
When David Byrne reworked the crooner classic, the Cole Porter hit, Don’t Fence Me In, he could have been singing about Pamela Anderson.
From Baywatch babe to cinephile, she has delivered star turns in recent films from The Las Showgirl and the remake of the comedy Naked Gun, alongside Liam Neeson.
She’s authored a vegan cookbook, I Love You, which features family recipes, and grown a deep love of gardening, a very meditative practice.
And she weaves all these elements into her new adventure, furniture design, inspired by Arcady, the home in Ladysmith, British Columbia, Canada, that she bought from her grandparents over 30 years ago and lovingly restored.
The collection evokes Anderson’s love of natural materials, flea market shopping, France, and above all, her grandmother, whom she adored.
“We started the collaboration by really looking at my home and looking at all these incredible wicker pieces that I’ve kept and carried around with me or things that my grandmother left behind,” she told Architectural Digest earlier this week, ahead of the launch yesterday, Wednesday, April 8th
“I just have such a soft spot [for these things]—and so many memories.”
Add LA sunshine and the outdoor lifestyle, and she's captured a mood many of us want to evoke now.
She grew up by the sea, she explains. “I remember our tiny cabin on the dock, the wood turned silver from years of salt and weather.
"Iʼve always been drawn to things that age and soften; furniture that holds you at dawn, that grows more beautiful the more you live with it. The best pieces become part of your rituals.”
This sensibility for nostalgic pieces is part of a slow living ethos that Anderson has always challenged.
It’s why she called the collection The Sentimentalist.
She’s teamed up with Olive Ateliers, an LA lifestyle brand, run by now husband and wife, Kendall and Ben Knox and Australian Laura Sotelo. Featuring natural rattan, it is a supple material that can be formed into baskets, lampshades, vases for dried flowers and larger furniture items.
It weathers well and lasts for generations.
“When I met Olive Ateliers a couple of years ago, I recognised that same reverence for imperfection and sentiment.
"They don’t chase trends; they honour time,” she explains.
“This collection feels like home to me. It’s unpretentious, a little French, a little wild. It’s meant to be used, worn in, and lived with.”
Olive Ateliers started life as upscale yard sales, a Los Angeles pop-up held every second Saturday, and has evolved into a contemporary concept for furniture fans.
The brand has a customer list that reads like a Hollywood call sheet, including model and entrepreneur, Kendall Jenner, Swedish fashion model, Elsa Hosk, businesswoman and celebrity, Kim Kardashian and music producer and impresario, Benny Blanco.
Kendall built her career in PR and brand marketing at fashion house Revolve, while Ben came from a consumer goods background at Red Bull and high-fat, low-carb snacks firm, Keto Farms.
Sotelo brought interior design and real estate management nous to the mix.
The collection includes loungers, reading chairs with matching ottomans, generous settees, dining chairs and tables, woven coffee and side tables, stools, baskets, a dog bed, and softly curved armchairs, with upholstered pieces paired with fabrics in a mixed blue stripe or classic ivory.
The kicker, for Irish readers, is that, for now, the collection isn’t being shipped outside of the US.
Given that, it may be time to ask relatives and friends Stateside to buy some of the smaller items on your behalf and ship them onward.
But it heralds a shift in mood.
There is a return to heirloom pieces that have sentimental meaning and that help to layer a home with some more contemporary designs.
The emotional connection brings with it a warmth money can’t buy, something Anderson conveys beautifully.
Vintage rattan pieces pop up at some of the auction house sales and in vintage and charity stores across the country. Mullens Laurel Park in Bray is one to take a look at.
Its next auction closes on April 26th, but the catalogue hasn’t yet been uploaded. Pete’s Antiques on Convent Avenue in Dublin 3 is a good place to look. eBay, Etsy and Vinterior all offer options, and anyone holidaying in the south of France this spring or summer should try to look at some of the antiques fairs and brocantes there, including one of the largest in Europe. Mr and Mrs Smith have a short guide here.
You can browse Pamela Anderson’s collection, The Sentimentalist, a collaboration with Olive Ateliers, here
