- Tat London
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
Tete a Tat With Cassandra Ellis
9th June 2025
Shopping for paint is one of those tasks that can send even the sanest among us into a complete tizz. You find yourself wobbling over a thousand whites, eyes darting between cards called things like Limestone Whisper or Alaska Halibut. It’s enough to make one feel unhinged. That was certainly me, until I discovered the work of Atelier Ellis, Cassandra Ellis’ innovation.
And I do mean work. What she does isn’t about keeping up with palettes or trends or slapping the same ‘greige’ on every wall from Kent to Cumbria. It’s more intimate than that. Her colours are composed, not produced, the result of thought, feeling, memory. A palette that feels closer to a body of work than a product line. You’re not just picking a shade your telling a story.
Ellis, originally from New Zealand, wasn’t exactly welcomed into the British job market with open arms. After moving back here in 2008, she sent out over 600 job applications. As anyone job hunting in that time will remember, it was a deeply demoralising quest and certainly was enough to put most people off. But through persistence, experience, and a finely tuned eye, she quietly built something better. Atelier Ellis is now a beacon of beauty: a company grounded in integrity, longevity, and heart. From the hand-painted colour cards to the formulation of the paint itself, every part of it feels considered, a rare thing in a market so saturated with gloss.
As for my own house, well, we made our choices in haste, and I’ll regret them for some time. The colours we used don’t speak to the building at all. They sit there, flat and mute, offering little more than coverage to cracks. Of course, being a picture hoarder, I haven’t exactly let the walls breathe, but even so, had I known about Cassandra’s work at the time, I like to think I’d have approached it all somewhat differently. Thought about the light. The mood. What the rooms might say if they were given half a chance.
Cassandra’s colours are about emotion. She wants you to feel something when you’re choosing, to tell the story of your home not through grand, trend-driven statements but through quiet consideration. Through hues. Perhaps, like her, you’ve always had a soft spot for Smoked Green Blue. Or maybe your life has been shot through with pinks, and it only feels like home with the embrace of the engaging Lady Susan or Faded Blossom.
Beyond the poetry, the poignancy one mustn’t overlook the practical: traditional paint is an environmental horror show. You’d never know it, but your indoor air can be 2–5 times more polluted than the air outside, thanks in part to emissions from wall paints and finishes. Most paints are packed with volatile organic compounds (VOCs), some containing up to 250 grams per litre. Atelier Ellis’s True Matt Emulsion contains just 0.07g/L a whisper by comparison and over 94% of its ingredients are natural, many sourced from within the UK. It’s not only beautiful; it’s breathable, responsible, and one of the few paints that truly lives up to the spaces it’s meant to honour.
Atelier Ellis meets all the requirements that Tat adores: it’s thoughtful, principled, quietly brilliant. A company where the good runs from start to finish. Not just in how it looks, but how it’s made and what it stands for. This summer, Cassandra is opening a new showroom in London — another bright spot in the city’s design scene — and has just launched a tremendous collaboration with the Hepworth Wakefield, further proof that her work resonates far beyond the domestic. It’s a quietly remarkable thing she’s built and the design world is richer for it.
Favourite restaurant?
If there was only one then always the Canton Arms whether for all the very, very good restaurant food, or the cheese and pickle toasted sandwiches out the front. If I was allowed more, then Italo Deli. Cycling through London on a warm day is always improved with lunch here. And then Landrace . My step daughter is a chef and baker there. The restaurant is awash in our paint and the food is really quite incredible.
Do you believe in ghosts?
I believe in spirits. It is always circling - the good, the bad and the ugly. I think everyone just wants to get back home.
I once owned a house in Lewes. There was definitely a little girl from the other side waiting for us to help her. So much so that the real estate agent would not come in and my electrician couldn’t be in there on his own. We consulted two friends - one a Vicar and one a Buddhist Monk - which sounds like the beginning of a joke, but we were just having coffee together :}. Raj told us to open the windows and let her blow through. Stephen concurred this would be the logical approach. So we did and she went and then the house was happy. I hope she was happy.
Are you a fan of surprises?
Oh no. No and no.
Favourite poem?
Robert Frost's - The Road not Taken. Poetry wasn’t part of my up bringing until I we had an American English exchange teacher. At 15 people can come into your life and their teachings can stick with you forever. So although it is a well know and hopefully well understood poem, I still recite it every day. Living this life in this country, doing what I do was never expected, so I am grateful for the fight.
Any good advice? Who gave it to you?
My first job - a wonderful Industrial Relations Manager called Barry. He told me to work hard and be kind to people who I didn’t understand or recognise. Also the simple or easily understood solution often isn’t the right one. Oh- and not to lie.
Pet Peeve? (eg - mine is people not saying thank you if you hold the door open etc)
Lying - I really hate lying.
If money was no object what painting would you like to own?
The entire Tate exhibition of Agnes Martin. I cried walking into that.
Top destination in the UK?
East Sussex - the rolling bodily hills of the South Downs. Literally love.
What language would you most like to be able to speak?
French - I really should be able to.
If you could live in any era of history, which one would you choose and what would you do?
In the great era of couturiers - and I would work for Vionnet. Easiest answer.
What song will always make you tap your foot?
Missing - Everything But the Girl.
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