What do award-winning musician, composer, and actor Jon Batiste and writer, artist, and advocate Suleika Jaouad have in common? The husband-and-wife duo, creative powerhouses in their own right, don’t exactly overlap. She writes. She paints. She designs. He makes music. But for their new holiday home and entertaining collaboration with Anthropologie, they’ve struck a shared visual language that might just help you find your groove this holiday season, too.
‘I think rhythm in a home is all the function, meets beauty, meets meaning,’ says Jon of the 46-piece lineup, spanning the requisite festive fare – giftable ornaments inspired by musical instruments and bearing his handwritten notation – alongside everything else your next holiday gathering might be missing. A cocktail shaker that rotates to reveal recipes and measurements for your next stint as bartender; a record player to set the mood; a conversation deck should the conversation need rescuing. Meanwhile, for the more ambitious host: a thoroughly fringed piano stool adds movement regardless of your guests' musical talents, while a roll-arm chair upholstered in Suleika’s original artwork sits on casters to quite literally follow the party.
They call the aesthetic ‘Tunisiana,’ a marriage of Jon’s New Orleans roots and Suleika’s Tunisian heritage. Deep blues and greens of Tunisia quell any holiday chaos; New Orleans supplies the saturated color and soul. Suleika’s signature geometry animates the areas in between, including the $16 stoneware mugs, which call for spiced rum cider, STAT! Far too spirited to spend their lives behind a cabinet door.
Shot in Jon and Suleika’s NYC home, the new pieces blend right in with their existing collection. Spot the newcomers: a twisted-leg bar cart, stainless-steel ice bucket, and one very smart cocktail shaker.
As with any other passion project, painting, piano, or otherwise, Jon and Suleika wanted to capture the rhythm of a home in progress. You layer. You collect. You change your mind. Storied and eclectic, the collection is rarefied enough for the holidays but not beholden to them, designed to mingle with your own accumulated treasures and occasional oddities. ‘We wanted each piece to feel like the beginning of a story – something you can make your own.’
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