Lucy & Yak X Studio Arhoj

Studio Arhoj X Lucy & Yak: The puddle worth stopping for

There is a particular kind of Yorkshire day when the sky cannot quite decide what it is doing. Your coat is on, your plans are still on, and the pavement has become a patchwork of puddles. You look down to avoid the biggest one. Then, for a second, you see a whole tiny rainbow trembling on its surface.

That little second is where this collection began. Studio Arhoj, the Copenhagen design studio we fell for on a trip to Denmark, took a rainy walk through the place where Lucy & Yak started and made it gloriously strange. There are birds overhead, wellies underfoot, rainclouds and rainbows in the same sky. The colours were inspired by the oily shimmer you can sometimes find in a puddle. Something most of us hurry past became the thing worth stopping for.

This is a story about seeing the familiar differently. It is also the story of two studios, one in Copenhagen and one with Yorkshire in its bones, finding out how much joy can fit into a grey afternoon.

SHOP THE COLLAB

The Long way round to Copenhagen

Studio Arhoj did not begin with a neat plan for a range of ceramics. Founder Anders Arhoj trained in multimedia design and worked in graphic design and animation before leaving Denmark for Tokyo in 2005. There, the marks of handmade Japanese pottery caught his eye. Rustic clay, visible hands and beautifully imperfect surfaces offered something quite different from the clean white porcelain he knew back home.

When he returned to Denmark, a screen began to feel too small for all the ideas in his head. He spent time with ceramicists, learned to work with clay and experimented with glazes and firing. One of the studio's now familiar little Ghosts found its first buyers at a design fair. For a while, production happened in his parents' garage in the Danish countryside, with local potters helping to bring the pieces to life. The journey from that garage to a studio of his own was built by trying things, making things and keeping the interesting mistakes.

His dream, in his own words, was “To build a house of design and production in the middle of the city...” In 2013 he opened his first ceramic and design studio in Copenhagen. In 2020 the team moved into a bigger home on Skindergade, where pottery, a shop and glass blowing could share the same space. Today, Studio Arhoj has two studio stores in central Copenhagen, and the people making the work are part of what you see when you walk in. At its newer Study space, pottery and glass sit alongside a print department working with Japanese RISO ink. The studio's appetite for trying another material, another method, another colour has never really stopped.

The studio you can actually step inside

We discovered Studio Arhoj on a design trip to Copenhagen. It is one thing to pick up a beautiful cup. It is another to see the person who made it throwing clay a few steps away, or watch glass take shape in the heat of the studio. A glaze might pool differently on one piece from the next. A hand-painted face might look as though it has just noticed you looking back. You can feel the freedom of a place where useful objects are allowed to be funny, surprising and full of feeling.

“Most people aren't used to seeing actual manufacturing in the middle of the city,” Anders says of the studio. “We try to do something different.” That openness stayed with us. There is no curtain drawn between the idea and the making. The work is right there, and so are the people behind it.

It makes perfect sense that a studio with such a curious eye would find more than drizzle in a Yorkshire forecast. Back here, rain is often the background to everything. It comes along on the walk to the shop, the train platform, the muddy route you thought was a shortcut. We know it so well that we sometimes stop seeing it. Studio Arhoj looked again.

Yorkshire rain, seen from somewhere else

When we invited the studio to collaborate, Anders pictured “A rainy walk through the fields of Yorkshire with migrating birds, liquid pools, multi coloured raindrop spots, mushroom tea and loads of boots.” It is a lovely, slightly surreal picture of an English autumn. You can almost hear the squelch of the path and see the birds making their way across the sky.

The print grew from that picture, with rainclouds, rainbows, wellies and birds in a joyful palette drawn from the sheen of oil on puddle water. There is a small bit of magic in that choice. A puddle can be the reason to turn back, or the thing that makes you look twice. Here it gets the starring role.

And the boots? Anders is very clear about those. “We love boots. All our characters always walk around in a good pair of wellies.” Of course they do. A good pair of wellies says you are going anyway. You are not waiting for the weather to give you permission to have a nice day. Put them on and see where the walk takes you.

That feels very Lucy & Yak to us. We began in York, and the world outside has always found its way into what we make: clothes for moving, making, meeting friends and getting on with it. Studio Arhoj brought a fresh pair of eyes to that everyday spirit. We brought a way to wear its wonderful world out into your own day.

A little piece of the story to wear

The limited-edition Original dungarees in Walking in the Rain are the all-in version of the idea, made in organic cotton. There is no subtle way to wear a puddle-inspired print across a pair of dungarees, and that is exactly the fun of it. The Lottie neck tie lets you bring a little piece of the print to an outfit you already love. Stevie, in recycled polyester fleece, adds a layer for the days when the air has a bit of a bite. The JoJo Gift Set brings another part of the collaboration into the mix.

There is a lovely connection between these pieces and the place they came from. Anders imagined “nice practical workwear pieces” that his own team could wear while working in the clay and glass studio. We love that thought: something playful enough to make you grin, and useful enough to come along while you do whatever the day asks of you. The collection is not a souvenir of a studio you may never visit. It is an invitation to take a bit of that spirit with you.

A cup made by Studio Arhoj earns a place in the daily ritual because it makes the familiar feel a little different. These clothes try the same trick outdoors. Imagine pulling on the dungarees when the window is stippled with rain. They cannot change the forecast, but they can change the first thing you notice when you step outside. The day becomes something to explore, even if you are only going as far as the corner shop.

So go for the walk. Take the long route home. Stop at the puddle for once and see what colours are looking back. You might come home with a little mud on your boots and a story you would have missed if you had waited for the sun.