I met Vickie Hayward after joining Ace Hotel in 2013; I was in New York and she held a complimentary role in London. An incredibly focused and thoughtful producer, Vickie's organized logistically challenging, high-concept projects with MOOG, Coal Drops Yard, and London Design Festival. In former lives, she's been a blacksmith, a set builder, and curated JR’s first exhibition in the UK. She once got out of bed at 5am to help me read poetry to worms in the Hackney Marshes. She's the best. We spoke a few times across March and April 2020.Ben: Vickie, hello! It’s been a minute, how are you doing? Are you safe and sound?
Vickie: I had some symptoms, which I don't think were related to it [COVID-19], or maybe I’m part of the percent of the people who've had it and it wasn’t bad. Because of that we've been totally, totally inside for 15 days. Even if you do go out, you can only go out for some essentials from the shop. I think some people are taking it seriously and some people less so, which is annoying. I heard the police are using drones now, catching people on with big picnics in the park. You know, it's not a bank holiday, it's a pandemic.
Ben: The term ‘bank holiday’ should tip readers off that you’re in the UK. Where are you originally from?
Vickie: I'm originally from Brighton, a seaside town south of London. A lot of people live in Brighton but work in London ‘cause it's 50 minutes on the train. It's a very liberal town with a big LGTBQ population. It's quite a party town as well. Caroline Lucas is the Green party MP there. That’s where I grew up.
Ben: So lots going on, bars and nightlife? Is that how you got into all this?
Vickie: Well, I pretty much worked since the age of 10 for my dad, who is involved with events. That's probably why I ended up doing what I'm doing.
Ben: What kind of events?
Vickie: He's retired now, but corporate events. A company wants to have a big Winter Wonderland holiday party. So I used to help build and install the sets. Then he started to leave me on jobs, managing teams of people a lot older than me, which was a baptism of fire. I used to cry a lot in the toilet on those jobs. But it was also a huge part of my practical education. In terms of nightlife, Brighton has quite a big Mod community as well. Obviously not originals. So I was quite into that before I left.
Ben: I’m picturing you on a scooter, en route to a Northern Soul party...
Vickie: My boyfriend at the time had one. Most of the boys did, it was probably all quite sexist. I was more into psych and garage than Northern Soul. We used to go up to London to this night called Mousetrap. It would go all night, which at the time felt totally crazy. We’d go out all night and then get on the first train home at seven.
Ben: And when the hangover wore off, you went on to become a welder or something right?
“…in my head the evening had to unfold exactly like the song Angel In My Pocket by Change.”
Vickie: I had applied to university to study physical geography and fell asleep in the talk about the course. I guessed it wasn't for me. Then I took a few courses in design and jewelry making and quite liked metal work. I found an internship with a lady blacksmith who used to make bespoke furniture. I was there for a year and at that time I lived with my granny in London who told me, “You need to go to university.” So I did. I studied silver-smithing and “allied crafts”, which basically means any material you want. I ended up doing lots of prop building in the end ‘cause actually I found it a bit more interesting.
Ben: What kind of props were you building? Was it still connected to your dad's work?
Vickie: No, I worked for a company that mainly dressed windows, like the big Christmas windows at Harrods and Selfridges. We would make a giant polystyrene apple for a Snow White window, that sort of thing. Later on I asked this bar that curated exhibitions with graffiti artists if I could do a project for their windows. I made giant roots for Halloween that were all bursting out of the ground.
Ben: Was this JAGUARSHOES?
Vickie: Yes. I was talking to the owner, just basically chatting about everything and nothing and at the end of the installation, he just said, “Oh, what do you want to do? I think he should come and work for me. Just tell me what job you want and I'll find something for you.”
Ben: You spent a decade with JAGUARSHOES right? You ended up their Creative Director?
Vickie: Eight years. At that point there weren’t that many companies really doing well, what we all do now, you know? I got to basically pick the artists, build the shows, the marketing...we made products, t-shirts, mugs and all this stuff. There weren’t that many other places like that. I was so lucky to be given that opportunity.
Opening night at Coal Drops Yard, London. Photo provided by Vickie Hayward.
Ben: When you say “people doing what we all do”, you kind of mean experiential marketing? Or sort of art-centric agency work?
Vickie: I suppose it's content creation, but at that time a lot of places didn’t have that kind of content then. Now, Ace [Hotel] has inspired a million other brands to do similar things. But when I was working at JAGUARSHOES, I’d never found anything else quite like it. I worked with the more commercial artists and designers, which I've always found very interesting. Sometimes, someone would transition over to the more fine art side of things, JR for example. We put on his first show in the UK, his second was a piece on the front of Tate Modern.
Ben: After JAGUARSHOES [and their related agency, Fifty Foot Tall], you ended up at Ace Hotel. We started working there within a couple of months of each other, right?
Vickie: Yeah, I think so. I think when I started, I thought you'd been there for ages. You seem to have a handle on it.
Ben: Sure hah. Yeah...sure..
Vickie: It was a very demanding environment.
Ben: To say the least, yeah. How did you come to the hotel in the first place?
Vickie: My cousin who lives in Panama was marketing the American Trade Hotel [a former Atelier Ace project] at the time. He sent me a message saying someone was going to call me about a job in Panama and that I need to answer the phone. I can't speak Spanish and didn’t particularly want to leave London, but I did have a good conversation with Ryan Bukstein [at Ace] who suggested that I meet Kelly [one of Ace Hotel’s partners] while she was in town. We went for breakfast and just laughed a lot. She's asked me, “So do you really want to move to Panama? ‘Cause we've got a job for you here in London you could apply for.”
Ben: What was Shoreditch all about then? When Ace was announced did that signal some kind of shift? A moment in gentrification history?
Vickie: Gentrification was in full swing, things had already changed over there. And Ace wasn’t buying a place out that people loved...it was this big chain hotel that no one really noticed. They made something out of it that was good for that stretch of road. That was a really smart choice.
Ben: Do you have a most-memorable project from Ace?
Vickie: Opening a hotel is the thing I may have the most scars from. A baptism by fire. In terms of things I really enjoyed there’s the LDF [London Design Festival] project. Alongside Laura Housely of Modern Design Review and Loren Daye from Studio Love is Enough, I got to commission items for the hotel, which, in a way, was stepping outside my role. With LDF the thought was if we are already buying something we should just make that into the project we present at the festival. The hotel needs doorknobs right? So, make an interesting doorknob that can also tell a story. The budget was already allocated in a way, we helped find the right designers and vendors.
Ben: You also helped launch that property’s performance venue, Miranda. I really love that room.
Work by the artist JR on display at JAGUARSHOES. Photo provided by Vickie Hayward.
Vickie: That project was largely done by Loren Daye, Belin Liu and myself. It was quite nice ‘cause it was one of those projects where a lot of people didn't get involved. Like most brands, naturally a lot at Ace has to go all the way up the chain, but this just had to get done and it felt like we were doing all the creative work you'd do if opening your own small venue with friends. Initially they wanted the space to almost have nothing to do with the hotel. Just this small black box you’d find on your own and wonder what it was. Which was good, but after a while we realized it needed a brand and voice. When we started, there was a really, really, really diverse program musically. Some of that got cut in the end because you know, experimental harp night isn’t paying the bills.
Ben: On to dubstep Saturdays!
Vickie: That’s the tension. But when we finally got an actual dedicated booker, Stryker Mathews, that was the turning point. I had been programming it along with the rest of the hotel events and it was breaking even but you know, I also was barely sleeping or getting to enjoy any of it. In those early days I would get up, go to work, have a small cry and then go to sleep. There's nothing else, there's no social life, nothing.
Ben: How’d the name come about? Who is Miranda?
“I am very, very slowly learning about mushrooms and maths and mycelium and growing; growing things rather than buying materials.”
Vickie: So in addition to the programming, we helped develop that missing layer of personality. The name came from a party we did, it was something around an anniversary for Voyager, the space probe with the gold record. At that, they were talking about Miranda, a moon of Uranus. It’s this thing in space, basically the weirdest object seen in our solar system. Miranda was blown apart and brought back together by its own gravity, a mismatched perfect fit. Loren and Belin and I were working on a background narrative and I just thought, “That’s this room.” From there Loren helped with room design and Belin did more graphics and we all went out around town and bought stuff for decorations. We did so much work and I was proud of it, but honestly I thought nobody noticed. However, Paul (from Spiritland) one day told me how much he liked the venue and Paul...
Ben: Paul from the MOOG project? I really loved that project. It wasn’t on the list but, can you talk about that one for a bit?
Vickie: Sure. So an email came to events@ or whatever— and this is why you should always read all your emails —and this guy Paul [Smith] is telling me he’s got a sound system from MOOG and wants to do something with it. So I immediately replied. I wasn’t sure if he was for real, or maybe some kind of elaborate hoax. So we met up and it turns out he was the manager for Suicide and has a million amazing stories. You'd meet him and just talk for three hours. We met so many times, but I wasn’t sure if it was ever going to really happen. The Soundlab is pretty much every piece of equipment that MOOG ever made, as one grouping. Honestly, until the day that it turned up I didn't know if it was going to happen. But then Paul brought it to the hotel. We put it in a bedroom for a month and different musicians and artists, different writers stayed with it for three nights and made music. At the end we wheeled it all down to Miranda and they did a live performance with Dreamachines on the tables. Actually MOOG put a record out of it, I wasn’t sure if they ever had so I looked the other day and there it was. So I just finally ordered one.
An object collection Vickie oversaw for Ace Hotel as part of London Design Festival’s Ready Made Go series.
Ben: So all these projects made you a bit of a hot ticket within Ace. You got promoted to being...my boss! Head of Cultural Programming for the company. This put you on a road a lot, how’d you like that?
Vickie: It brought me to places like New Orleans, Chicago, and Pittsburgh, where people are doing really amazing things. I got to meet lots of incredible humans working in social justice, I learnt so much from them and am so grateful for that. I was seeing what peoples’ lives were all about in many locations, which can be inspirational at times and also difficult to witness. Spending time in New Orleans and really seeing how hard people work for very, very little is eye opening to say the least. New Orleans is a special place and I really enjoyed the fact that I’d visit a place like there or Pittsburgh...and I’m not from there, so I’d have to earn people’s trust. I really liked that bit. My attitude was, “Well, I’m from the UK. I don't fucking know. So just tell me. Just tell me what it is that’s special and not so special about here.” It’s a very Ace way to be, to be honest. But all those projects were, you know, also just...really, really hard work.
Ben: Around the time you left Ace, the brand was developing its Kyoto project, which kinda makes me think of moss. I know you’re big on moss, and I’ve also been seeing you've got a little home mushroom project going on. Is there any relationship between these quiet plants and your design, events, and other creative work?
Vickie: Yes. They are entirely connected. Two years ago I started my own company [Company,Place] and have been learning more about resources and sustainability. There is so much waste in events but, I'm caught between having bills to pay, therefore needing a job, but also not wanting to contribute to the destruction of the planet. So I've been trying to think about how, if I have to do these experiential things, how I can do them better. A lot of it is about material. So yes I am very, very slowly learning about mushrooms and maths and mycelium and growing; growing things rather than buying materials. It is something I'm interested in personally, but also needs to become part of the work that I'm doing. Probably much much quicker than I’m doing it right now.
Ben: How did you decide to go out solo and form your own company?
“ I definitely find myself in the middle of projects thinking, “Well, you're the only fucking person that suggested this...look what you did to yourself.”
Vickie: I had resigned from Ace and it was really just instinct. What I know how to do is to come up with a project, give it a name, brand it, build it, and deliver it. And so I did that. I was nervous because I’ve always worked for somebody else and that gave me a sense of security, albeit false perhaps. Forming Company,Place made it feel like what I was doing was more official.
Ben: What’s been the biggest day to day change compared to working for another company? Has more freedom led to less security or the other way around?
Vickie: It's different all the time, but I’m feeling good about things. I’ve been in a very fortunate position in that from the day I started my company, I've had work. But there was always the fear of not knowing what’s three months away. You also think it will be more freedom or you will be more in control of your schedule but then it ends up being similar hours. You spend time making sure your insurance and paperwork are all in order, it’s quite a lot. You know, there's something nice about building equity into your own company instead of somebody else's, but there's parts of me saying, ”Oh my God, I don’t want to read a 72 page insurance policy, should I just go and get a job working for someone else?”
Ben: One of your biggest clients has been Coal Drops Yard, what’s that place all about? How’d you get looped in?
Vickie: Coal Drops Yard is a new retail development in King’s Cross, which itself is a newer development in the city.I was introduced to the now Managing Partner, Anna Strongman, through other people I have worked with. I don’t generally use words like this, but I think she is something of a visionary. She understands culture and the importance of layering that in to make places special. We got chatting and it was actually quite straightforward. I wanted to work for her and it looks like she wanted me to do that as well.
Ben: What were you initially tasked with?
Vickie: I was brought on to do the creative strategy for the first year of programming and the launch event. Which involved moments in the year where there's something bigger happening like an installation, layered on top of ongoing, smaller events. It’s been quite a major undertaking as it’s a public space with no covering and the infrastructure that you get used to with indoor venues. In addition to coming up with the creative concepts, I then worked on the delivery by bringing on different production teams and creative partners. I really enjoy being involved in that part and figuring out how to make ideas feasible.
Ben: I’d love to hear about a few projects that inform the property’s overall vibe. Maybe one that’s more heady and another that’s like...a wow moment.
The MOOG sound system in guest room at Ace Hotel London. Photo provided by Vickie Hayward.
Vickie: I brought in a group called Store Projects, an association of designers and architects who provide educational opportunities to students; people who are thinking about going to higher education. These students generally come from lower income backgrounds, in the UK lots of arts education funding in schools have been cut, so access to this discipline is even harder now. So Store Projects’ goal is to help fill in a bit of the gap. The designers are inventing their own machinery, they are quite radical really, working in bioplastics and new materials, pushing things forward. We worked up a concept where they have a shop on site, the students design products and the product gets sold in a shop. Plus weekends and evenings they host workshops for the general public. I’m very keen on this project, and wouldn't it be amazing if one day, one of those students has a shop in the yard themselves? I find that potential for the retail angle to be exciting, though at the moment a lot of these projects have temporarily transitioned to digital platforms.
Ben: That is awesome, and extremely you. What about big public space moments?
Vickie: I suppose the first major public realm moment was to bring in Studio Mieke Meijer, they are industrial designers who have a product called Space Frames. It’s an interior modular lighting system, made from curves and straights. The pieces are really skillfully engineered, the work looks so simple and beautiful. Super clean lines. They’re now installed outside each winter for a seasonal lighting display, but reconfigured into different shapes each time. This was the first commission for an exterior version Space Frames and we did this as part of the launch for Coal Drops Yard. Which was a very intense project, a lot was riding on that day for me and it started out with torrential rain...
Ben: The day this huge party is supposed to happen, the culmination of all your work...it rained the whole day? Did it flop?
Vickie: We don't get too much torrential sheet rain in the UK, we get drizzle. This was a pummeling. All day people were coming up to me in the office saying, “It’s raining,” I’m like...I know, I can see out the window. About half an hour before the party started, the skies cleared. Just enough. People started walking in at six, more people by seven and suddenly there's thousands of people. I feel like it was a success because at one point I overheard someone screaming something along the lines of, “This is amazing. Wait, where are we? Is this a shopping centre?”
Ben: That’s why I’ve avoided outdoor shit. Too stressful! Are there skills that carried over from your early days as a set builder that you still rely on with projects at this scale, or in moments of near crisis like that?
Vickie: Yes, definitely. You have an idea, and you know enough to know you don't know how to do it. But you know who and how to brief somebody on what you’re looking for. Then, as they’re doing it you are right there, learning alongside. I love workshops and making stuff, every bit of knowledge you pick up helps navigate conversations, especially with tradesmen. I always find that if I mention I was a blacksmith, we have more of a peer to peer conversation after. It’s about understanding the hands-on work as much as conceptual. It’s important to remember that all these little things that you've learned, they become instinctual. When you have worked a lot on your own or in really small teams, you also end up doing a lot of jobs others haven’t had the opportunity to do. But also you and I, we like to carry our projects to the end and hold onto them quite tightly. Often we have to because no one else is going to do it. So I try to keep it all in mind, to set standards but also be there to help people.
Some mushrooms Vickie’s been growing at home. Photo provided by Vickie Hayward.
Ben: Our mutual pal Greg [Bresnitz] wants to know a bit about your ideation process. What comes first, a general idea or a client’s prompt, etc? What are the first steps?
Vickie: Uh, it's a mess! It's chaotic, but I suppose I already know what it is that I want to do early on. I've usually been thinking about some idea for a really long time already, even before there is a prompt from a client. I suppose often I think about what the audience needs to feel first. Say if it's a big event. What's the mood? I often have a song in my head and that event has to match the arc of that song. The launch of Coal Drops Yard for example...in my head the evening had to unfold exactly like the song Angel In My Pocket by Change. The song builds up and up and has these amazing gospel choir euphoric moments.
I can't read my own writing, so I very rarely work on paper. Normally what I start with is notes on my phone when I'm just watching TV or running errands...I’m thinking about all this stuff while doing other things. Then I do always need to make a formal deck with a mood-board. I have to. Otherwise I feel I haven't fully unfolded the idea. Then I try to find people who really fit the brief. Everything I do is about finding other people. My only skill is to find other people who are skilled.
Ben: I have a question from the aforementioned Loren Daye for you. Loren asks, “What is the most important thing?”
Vickie: Oh, God. Okay I think it's fear and excitement, the excitement and fear of the unknown. Doing something that I haven't done before...I am driven by getting to do something that I haven't, to get to learn something new. I definitely find myself in the middle of projects thinking, “Well, you're the only fucking person that suggested this...look what you did to yourself.”
Ben: You convince someone to build a ditch but once you’re down there you’re like “Shit. Did we budget for a ladder?”
Vickie: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. In this industry, we have to be able to do both volume and speed with some level of accuracy, which is quite hard. And maybe a bit of reverse engineering, or post rationalizing. I think the most important thing...this is gonna sound lame, is probably to laugh. Just laugh. Laughter gets you to the end. We find ourselves in such ridiculous situations a lot of the time. The ability to take certain things seriously, but be able to poke fun of them and not take oneself too seriously. Maybe that makes me the class clown. But just laughing with people when shit's going sideways ’cause it goes sideways all the time.