Did you hydrate today? Have you moved? What are you currently inspired by?
To Wilde House Paper, staying organized should be a balancing act between efficiency and remembering to stop, breathe, and check in with yourself. But rather than making mindfulness something to do– a box to check off in between answering e-mails and getting chickpeas from the store– Wilde House takes a mindful approach to efficiency as a whole. They take routine, and turn it into a ritual, a fine line they’ve differentiated by explaining that “rather than trying to hold oftentimes draining routines, rituals instead bring new inspiration into daily life.”
In other words, a ritual is a routine with substance, with nuance.
The product that most encompasses this ethos is perhaps their Daily List Pad. Not only does it break the day down by hour, it has small sections for priorities, nourishment, and wellbeing. The fact that it’s a notepad and that it’s designed to be taken literally day-by-day, to me makes it a perfect symbol of staying present.
As a brand, Wilde House prizes intentionality, sustainability, and community. Founders Megan Heddinger and Connor Dreschler created their brand with the intention of creating products to enhance these everyday rituals. Depending on what order you eventually end up reading these entries, you may or may not have already heard me talk about how more than any product, time is life’s greatest luxury. It’s not just the time we have, but the depth we give to it.
A planner is a specific type of journal, and the point is in the name: to plan. But what about the need to reflect about what has already been done, rather than what needs doing? Planning and reflecting, like day and night, are simply two sides of the same coin. What Wilde house does, essentially, is shine light on the dark side of the moon.
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I didn’t mean for this to end up being the footnote of this post because it’s actually what drew me to Wilde House Paper in the first place, but the quality of their cardstock is off the charts. If you’ve ever seen/read the business card scene from American Psycho you know what I’m talking about. They also plant a tree with every order, and have detailed information on their website that talk about their partnership with One Tree Planted and their reforestation efforts in the Amazon, New South Wales, and California.
This is a quintessential example of a slow luxury brand: high quality, design-driven products made with functionality, sustainability, and— perhaps most importantly – reminders to hydrate in mind.
