Built to last: What slowing down has taught me about Southampton 

Nick Fisher 

I’ve lived and worked in Southampton for a long time now, it’s where I’m raising my young family, with my wife who grew up here, and it’s where my business – Still and Bloom – is based. Like many people, my relationship with the city has grown slowly. It’s a city shaped by industry, movement and reinvention, but also by patience. Ships arrive and depart, buildings change use, communities evolve. Nothing really happens overnight, even if from the outside it sometimes looks that way. 

With the arrival of a new year, I’ve been thinking about how we’re encouraged to reinvent ourselves on a fixed date, as though change is something you can simply decide and implement by Monday. I’ve never quite believed in it.  

I’m a designer by trade and I’ve always been drawn to natural materials and a love of furniture that’s practical yet beautiful. Different woods are always the most intesting to work with. Timber doesn’t respond well to being rushed. It grows at its own pace, reacts to its environment, and carries the marks of wherever it’s been before. If you try to force it, you lose what makes it interesting. There’s a lesson in that well beyond furniture-making. 

The business itself came about during a moment of collective pause. In June 2020, during the first Covid lockdown, I suddenly had time I’d never really had before. After studying Industrial Design at Bournemouth University, I’d gone straight into the fast-paced world of commercial interiors, keeping furniture-making to evenings and weekends. Lockdown shifted that balance. With people spending more time at home, often under real strain, I began making a small range of pieces in a garden workshop, well my garage, guided by a desire for simplicity, sustainability and reclaimed materials. 

What started as a personal response gradually became something more collaborative, drawing in family members and, over time, a small team of skilled people from the local area. That sense of learning from one another and building something together feels rooted in Southampton, a city where craft, industry and community have long overlapped. 

Nature has always been a quiet reference point for my work – not just in how things look, but in how they come into being. The business grew in much the same way: slowly, in response to circumstance rather than any grand plan. Winter, especially, reminds me that growth often happens beneath the surface. It’s a time for taking stock and allowing things the space to rest before they change again. 

Working with reclaimed wood makes that tangible. Each piece arrives with evidence of a previous life – saw marks, old fixings, worn edges – details that speak to where it’s been and how it was used. These aren’t flaws to be hidden, but signs of usefulness and endurance. 

In contrast, we’re surrounded by what’s often called “fast furniture”: pieces made to follow a look rather than serve a long life. When trends shift, those items are discarded and replaced. It’s a cycle that mirrors other parts of modern life – quick fixes, short attention spans, constant upgrades.  

The same applies to how we live and work together as a community. Craft depends on skill, attention and care, and on people having the space to do things well. Southampton has a strong culture of making, from traditional trades to contemporary creative practice, and that spirit of shared knowledge is one of the city’s real strengths. 

Still and Bloom is, at its core, is still a family business. We’ve built a skilled, friendly and genuinely caring team. We don’t rush or cut corners. We believe you get out what you put in, and having such a talented team means every piece is made with real consideration and pride.  

As we move further into another year, I’m not aiming for reinvention. What feels more valuable is paying attention: to how things are made, how places evolve, and what’s worth holding on to. If that means slowing down a little and letting change happen in its own time, that feels like a good fit – for work, for home, and for life in this city. 

To find out more about Still and Bloom, visit www.stillandbloom.co.uk