Every year, we push ourselves to grow beyond the year before, building for lasting ways of life. To keep us accountable, we’re sharing our top goals for 2022 with you. We can’t wait to have you along for the ride.

We’re Growing

Starting anew with a story of going back, following Tunis-born, Montreal-based photographer Oumayma B. Tanfous as she journeyed home to Tunisia. Captured on film by Oumayma.

All my senses are awakened when I’m back home. It’s quite cliché but walking at night and picking jasmine flowers is one of my favourite things. Something else that brings me calmness and peace is hearing the call to prayer, especially the first one at dawn.

“All my senses are awakened when I’m back home.”

Oumayma’s Travel Essentials

Homebound with Oumayma Tanfous

Kotn was built with longevity in mind, focusing on centuries and not seasons to create lasting change. In spite of this year’s obstacles, it was one of our most memorable yet. With your help we hit major milestones, creating lasting impact, connecting with our community, and affirming our ethos in exciting new ways.

2021, Recapped 

For us, Black Friday is about building a stronger tomorrow for the communities who craft our products. So to celebrate our 5th anniversary of giving back on Black Friday, we've collaborated with four artists we admire to create a limited-edition charitable collection inspired by what a lasting community means to them.

Shop the Collection

While quantities last, 100% of this collection’s proceeds will fund education in our cotton farming communities. Until November 30th, proceeds from all Kotn products will go towards this same goal. 

Black Friday Artist Collection

Right at Home

To creatives Saty and Pratha, a home is defined by the feelings it provides to those inside it. The two photographers—who styled and shot the pieces in our new Bazaar collection—brought us inside their space to share how they turned their country dream house into a home.

Photographed in Prince Edward County alongside our 

Tell us about your great escape to the country.



“We’d been coming to this area for a long time, about a decade, for camping and day trips. We knew we wanted to be out here eventually because it reminded us of the English countryside. When Saty came across a listing for this house one winter, with good bones and unobstructed views, we decided to take a chance on it.

“Our favourite part of living here is the borrowed landscape of our farming neighbours—there’s excitement to witnessing the various crop cycles and seasonal changes and comings and goings of wildlife and farm animals. For people who are competitive, and probably think way too much about work, it’s nice to feel like a tiny speck in a much bigger plan once in a while!”

What has influenced the creation of your home space?



“If a ‘feeling’ can be an aesthetic then a sense of calm is probably the other biggest creative consideration. We get the same feeling of openness inside the house as we do when we step into the field outside. We kept to a very limited palette of materials so that spaces seem continuous and not visually jarring. We wanted to live in a home where we and everyone who visited felt at ease and there was space to be bored and daydream. We’re not sure all artists need this, but we definitely do!”

What does it mean to you to be able to gather at your home?



“Right now it is the thing we most look forward to in our calendar! We love lazing in the field with friends and seeing our tiny niece and nephew run through the house and leave rocks in their wake in odd places. Most of our friends are great cooks and eaters and it’s lovely to prepare meals together and set the table and spend hours in conversation. For the last two summers, we’ve been growing our own vegetables and there’s a total thrill that comes from a self-sufficient meal!”

What objects in your home do you love most?



Pratha: “Our favourite objects are those made by our friends—furniture, art, ceramics—and things collected in travel. I also have a soft spot for ceramics that border on hideous; I always want to meet the mind that came up with it! A personal favourite of mine is a tiny bowl that I got in Oxfam in London when we first lived there, it reminds me of one of the most exciting times in my life and is also aesthetically so beautiful. It was the gateway piece that got me into British pottery. Another is an enamel plate that’s been in my family for nearly 50 years, it made it through a civil war in Sri Lanka and now hangs out with its French flea market counterparts in our kitchen drawer.”

Saty: “There’s a wooden stool that we inherited from our Toronto studio building. It’s super utilitarian and it has a massive crack on the seat that has been patched up many moons ago. It’s nothing fancy and you could easily walk past it in a flea market but it’s got so much history and I superstitiously think it’s brought us luck through the years. We were told it had been in the building since the ‘20s and now that we’ve relocated it to the country we hope it can last another century or so.”

Our core brand message at Kotn is “Lasting Ways of Life.” What does that mean to you?



“In a romantic sense, it means choosing everyday things that are inspiring and make us want to take care of them and keep them around. We feel lucky to have friends who make us perfect stools and charming cups, and the like. We think that people will intrinsically value and care for items more when they know who designed or physically made them.

“In a practical sense, it means buying in a way that benefits the maker and choosing materials and pieces that will last a very long time. Buying according to need and a personal aesthetic versus trends. It’s something we think about a lot considering we work within the fashion industry, the largest chunk of which is about trend-based consumerism and planned obsolescence—that line between people having the right to nice things and constantly contributing to landfill. We both love industrial design so it can be tempting to amass things (especially when we can justify it as being props for work!) but we try really hard to limit what comes into our home by investing in things that we really love that we can see being around us for decades.”

Saty & Pratha's Picks

Lasting Ways With Saty & Pratha

Adding functionality to form, Kassandra Thatcher wants everyone to feel the joy of living with art. The NYC-born and bred ceramicist—with a penchant for monochromatic looks—uses her lighting creations to bring sculpture into everyday domestic spaces.

Photographed in her studio styling our 

How did growing up in NYC affect your path to become an artist?

“Growing up in the city, the world seemed so open and exciting from such a young age. I think the most lasting way it affected me, in relation to my work now, was that I was raised believing that I could grow up and be an artist—in fact, it was what I was told I would do. My parents encouraged me to pursue my passions no matter what.”

Can you tell us about your pottery style?

“I have always been mainly interested in two things: the way things move, down to the smallest of things, and how we take up space; how that space informs our behavior. The main source of these fascinations is from the language of movement I developed quite young to translate my frustrated emotions and grief into choreography. I was a part of a dance company from age 8-18, formed post 9/11. So, a preoccupation with shape, movement and gesture as a way to say something more, are things that have become embedded in me as the basis for creative practice.”

Explain your relationship with clay.

“Clay has so much life to it—it doesn’t give in to any whim you may have. It will stop you in your tracks and force you to pause to look at what you’re doing differently. So you develop quite a strong, perhaps tumultuous relationship with it. I love that you can’t just do anything to it, it really humbles you and your ego.”

Why do you focus on creating lighting in your collections?

“I wanted people who didn’t have boundless funds to experience the joy of living with art—it shouldn’t be unattainable. That was how I made my way into lighting. My thought was that by adding functionality to the sculptural work, folks would feel more confident investing in things they love, instead of living in a world where art was simply out of reach.”

“In the studio, I’m always in white painter’s pants and a fitted white ribbed tank. I love how many pockets the pants have and they are very breathable cotton. Always white because clay doesn’t show up as much on white so I can be quite dirty and no one will know.

“Outside of the studio, I feel like my style has changed quite a lot post-Covid. I’ve become a bit more experimental and embracing a more feminine look which was never me before. But still my go-to is a vintage oversized button-down and either denim or casual dress pants and sneakers. For me, these specific items in my closet have a really lovely silhouette, so I always feel put together even when I’ve just thrown something on (which is usually the case).”

Our guiding principal at Kotn is “For Lasting Ways of Life.” What does living a lasting way of life mean to you?

“To me, a lasting way of life really means keeping things simple and taking things at face value. Keeping up the friendships that serve you, doing the work that fulfills you, eating the food that nourishes you, indulging when it feels good, spending time outdoors, having a simple wardrobe, and so on.”

Kassandra's Picks

Lasting Ways With: Kassandra Thatcher

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We're Growing

By Team Kotn