I was five years old. It was a warm summer holiday, and as I did every day, I was playing with my little shop. I decided on the prices of my plastic tomatoes and bananas, imagined customers and a busy shop. I was telling myself a story, the greatest joy for me!

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For as long as I can remember, my parents have run a garden centre from our home. There was always a steady stream of people coming by. When a customer wanted to buy something from the garden centre, they would pay us in the shed. So it was never boring at home; everyone came in through the back door. And that shed was also my playroom.

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The cold stone floor made it a lovely place to play on those warm summer days, including one Tuesday afternoon that I still remember. Mum was working, and so was I. She was helping customers at the garden centre, while I was playing in my little shop. I sold vegetables, fruit and milk,  in the form of plastic toys and cardboard packaging, of course ;). Every time my mother came inside, I could hear it from the squeaking door opening, and I would politely ask her: “Ma’am, would you like to buy these bananas?” And whenever one of the garden centre customers came inside, I would politely ask whether they had run out of milk.

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After a while, however, I realised that my work in the shop was different from my mother’s work. She had real products and real customers who paid with real money. My shop had toy bananas, and my imaginary customers paid with air. I quickly came up with a solution… When Mum came inside again with a paying customer, I seized my opportunity and took a few guilders from the cash register. Unfortunately, the game lasted no longer than fifteen minutes, so I had to give the real money back. This time, though, I didn’t get air in return. I got toy money!

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Recently, I suddenly thought back to this experience from when I was five. It struck me that even then, I was already searching for a certain feeling. I was looking for something real. While another child might spend hours drinking imaginary cups of tea and offering you another one ten times over, I quickly noticed that something was missing. I was missing tea in my plastic tea set and money in my toy cash register. It may seem like a small detail, but for me, something much bigger was missing: a feeling. Something I could touch, smell, hear, taste and/or see.

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It is no coincidence that this is still the foundation of my values in the design process every day. Experiencing things through the senses is still incredibly important to me. Could this experience have been where my love for detail, through the senses, began?

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Lotte de Jong

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P.S. I’m curious: do you have a childhood memory that somehow connects to your current work or outlook on life? Feel free to share your answer below, I’ll be the only one reading it!

 

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