The art of collecting with Banjo Beale

Banjo explores how finding and displaying special treasures can tell your personal story

The secret of a collected home is to focus on things you love, curating curious combinations that tell your personal story and trigger memories. Your collection will evolve organically over time – layering vintage pieces with new or unexpected objects to create an original mood and timeless charm that you can revisit, edit and continue to add to.

My husband collects cutlery. At first, I didn’t understand the obsession and he can’t quite explain it himself but I absolutely appreciate how easy it makes Christmas, work trips and ‘just because’ presents. It’s perhaps the most overused quote amongst interior designers, collectors and enablers, but William Morris was on the money when he said, ‘Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.’

People say you should collect memories, not things. I like to collect things from great memories. When I’m travelling, I like to remind myself that I’m actually, right in this moment, in a memory. Savouring the sights, sounds and smells and looking for little things to buy that will take me back to that exact moment in time.

I don’t buy souvenirs when I travel, instead seeking out local cooking shops and markets for interesting utensils and practical items. Once, while backpacking through southeast Asia, I bought a mortar and pestle on the first day of a one-month long trip. Carrying a souvenir the size of a brick on and off long boats, buses and across rice fields was not my favourite experience, yet now every time I use it I’m immediately transported to that market in Lombok where men throw fish over the crowd, children chomp on coconuts and women furiously smash spices.

India is my favourite place in the world and I return any chance I can. For a long time, the bhar has been a vessel for serving chai throughout the country. Today, only a handful of places still serve the brew from these clay cups, helping to give it a rich and earthy flavour. In Kolkata the streets are paved with broken bhar and chai wallas refuse to serve their tea in anything but these, the original and only truly sustainable disposable cup in the world.

After slurping down the last delicious sip of sweet chai you’re supposed to ceremoniously smash the bhar on to the pavement, returning the clay to the earth in which it was made. Me, however, I put them in my bag. Over the course of many years I’ve built up a collection of these beautiful vessels, artfully displayed in their very own cabinet, in a collection I will treasure forever.

Creating still lives or vignettes is a perfect way to display your finds and add a narrative to your home. My friend and artist Helen Mortley combs beaches for shells, pottery shards and rope and artfully arranges them in shadow boxes.

If you’re like me and have a motley crew of treasures, then a curiosity cabinet comes in handy to help display oddities and ephemera that might otherwise look out of place, or all together too much on a shelf. Any brown wood, glass-fronted cabinet will do the trick. Here, placing unexpected finds side by side creates an eclectic and intriguing mix and paints a picture of a homeowner who leads a life less ordinary.

Books, plants and vintage finds stacked on a coffee table or architectural plan drawers are a wonderful way to display a storied life. Instead of reaching for the remote, it will inspire you to reach for a book or dream of far-flung places. The key is to mix heights, turn books and add texture and foliage to create a visual feast. Most of all, have fun travelling and buy it if it makes your heart flutter. I promise that every time you give it a passing glance, it will take you back to your happy place.