Roddy began his career in restoration working alongside his father – a well-known China and Porcelain restorer. After five years of managing multiple restoration projects all over the UK, he then moved to London to become an interior stylist and writer. Being exposed to the world of high street interiors made him realise the enormity of the issues the industry faced. He then worked on a Sustainable Business Management course at Cambridge University’s Institute of Sustainability Leadership. This spurred him on to refocus his writing to explore the positive social and environmental impacts design can have. From that point on he has embarked on a number of creative projects alongside his journalism to bring clarity to the sector and encourage both consumers and designers to do the right thing.

Having started out in the finance world, Aurélia had the idea for Bleur while working in venture capital. She was renovating her soulless flat in South London to turn it into a home and wanted to invest in emerging art. But when it came to art, she had no idea where to start and felt overwhelmed by the choices out there not finding anything that resonated with her. Then she realised that the emerging artists she had been looking for were completely absent from the space and not once in her search did she have the opportunity to meet them or hear their voices first-hand. And that’s how Bleur was born to reimagine art as a lived experience of the many and pioneer new ways of bringing emerging art closer to people. Bleur was launched to the public with its first campaign in January 2020 and has grown from strength to strength since.