James Seaton, Toast’s co-founder and Creative Director, is interviewed by The Lifestyle Editor about his work, inspirations and achievements.
Who are you: James Seaton
What is your work: Co-founder and Creative Director of Toast
What is your website: www.toast.co.uk
Alexandra Harris tells us about her favourite place, though she struggles to choose just one… Places are a huge source of pleasure in my life: mostly rural, mostly English, not too wild, preferably with signs of the past close to the surface. I know there are people who skim through Thomas Hardy’s descriptions of Wessex in order to get to some plot, but I’m the sort of person who skims through the events in order to get to the descriptions. I think I’m happiest when looking at a view. But how to choose a favourite place? They all have their moods and seasons; recent discoveries can be thrilling while the old haunts do their fair bit of haunting…
Next year marks the fifteenth anniversary of ‘Moro.’ The Moorish Mediterranean restaurant was started by husband and wife team Sam and Sam Clark in 1997 in what was then a ramshackle, partly boarded up Exmouth Market. The street has since become a thriving and vibrant parade with plenty of independent shops and many competing restaurants (surely in no small part because of Moro’s success)…
Nat Lucas.
It is difficult to imagine Orlando Gough entering into anything without total enthusiasm. His full steam ahead approach to life gathers you up in his wake – whether he is discussing cooking, a new rap artist or in this case, the day of events that he has curated for the ‘Voices Across the World’ festival at the Royal Opera House (commissioned by its contemporary arm ROH2). At the heart of the day are twelve of his favourite singers…
Kim Trethowan.
As producers of a handmade, unpasteurised product, slow food is not a concept for us, but a way of life and working. This does not mean we are backward looking; indeed it places Gorwydd Farm at the centre of a modern, yet traditional, community of slow food devotees, made up of interwoven and ever increasing circles. What community actually is provokes significant debate, but for us it represents all the people and groups who have contributed in some way to who we are, what we do and why we do it…
We talk to Alastair Sawday, founder of the Special Places to Stay guidebooks and the new luxury camping website Canopy & Stars, about his childhood spent in trees.
We’ve heard that you liked building inventive tree houses as a young boy… My first ‘tree house’ was actually more of a den – a few planks up in the canopy with a rope ladder for my friends and me to scramble up and down…
Jessica Seaton, Toast’s co-founder and Managing Director, is interviewed by Mr and Mrs Smith about her plans for Christmas
Where will you be spending Christmas?
Jamie (my husband and Toast’s co-founder and Creative Director) and I are going to the Alps with our son Nick. We stay at The Farmhouse in Morzine – an old chalet on the edge of the town. Dorrian, the owner, runs it like his own home, seating his guests around one table for dinner every evening. There is usually a great mix of people of all ages so the atmosphere is warm and convivial. It feels like being at home because we know the place and the people so well.
Travel writer Sara Wheeler on Martha Gellhorn.
Which story, of fiction or non-fiction, has had the most impact on you in your life? Can you tell us a little about it?
I first read Martha Gellhorn when I was eighteen. I chanced on a paperback copy of The Face of War in a second-hand bookshop, and devoured the first thirty pages standing there among the shelves…
Jessica Seaton, Toast’s Managing Director, tells us of her love for adventure and romance…
Which story, of fiction or non-fiction, has had the most impact on you in your life? Can you tell us a little about it?
Being a romantic at heart, I love the writing of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Particularly his two books Flight to Arras and Wind, Sand and Stars. The first encapsulates all his experiences as a French air force pilot into one gripping, compelling flight. The second tells how he crashed his plane into the Sahara desert: how he and his companion lived on just a couple of oranges, some grapes and a small amount of wine until they eventually found help…
