Levain Bakery used to use Crate & Barrel products to display its cookies because the home goods brand’s serveware looked clean, simple, and elevated.
“We weren’t finding some sheet pans or something at a restaurant supply place,” Levain Bakery’s cofounder, Pam Weekes, tells Fast Company. “We kind of wanted something that was a little more unique and special.”
Now the bakery has collaborated with the home goods brand on a 17-piece collection.
The two brands announced their collaboration Tuesday, which includes items like plates, glasses, dish towels, spatulas, mixing spoons, and a $15 ceramic Mini Crate inspired by the berry box colanders Levain Bakery has long used to display their cookies. The collection’s $18 Cookie Glass is hand-blown, and the $20 Perfect Silicone Cookie Mat was designed to make Levain-sized cookies at home.
Everything in the collection is something the bakery’s cofounders would use themselves.
“It was a real collaboration, which was really nice because I think we’re pretty particular, and we’re pretty clear about what we like and what we don’t like,” Weekes says. “But they’re pretty particular as well.”
The design process brought together Levain Bakery’s baking know-how and playful visual identity with Crate & Barrel’s manufacturing expertise and functionality.
When the bakery said they wanted to make a cookie jar, for example, Crate & Barrel had plenty of experience with making them. And when they wanted to make a bench scraper, a tool used to cut dough and scrape messy counters clean, Weekes and her team could explain their specific needs. Bench scrapers at restaurant supply stores are typically too big and clunky, so Levain Bakery has gotten theirs from France. (The bakery also got its name from France, as levain means leavening.)
“They’re not expensive, but they are hard to replace,” the other cofounder, Connie McDonald, says of their bench scrapers. “So . . . we explained it to the Crate & Barrel team like, ‘This bench scraper has to kind of fit in your hand and it has to feel good.’ And they did it, and it feels great.”
The $50 cookie jar, which comes with a maple lid, includes original illustration in Levain Bakery’s signature blue style by the artist and longtime collaborator Libby VanderPloe, as do the collection’s textiles, tools, and serveware.
For Levain Bakery, which opened as a bread shop in 1995 and is now preparing to open its 21st location, the collaboration helps get its brand name in more places, as Crate & Barrel has more than 100 stores, outlets, and franchise locations globally. Finally, fans of the New York City bakery you could get only in a few select cities can bring it to their own home.
Leave a comment