Help, everything’s gone green.
Fear not, this isn’t sudden colour blindness – simply a glimpse inside the aspirational, emerald-hued pantry of Martha Stewart.
Martha Stewart, America’s famed domestic goddess who ended up in the slammer for securities fraud?
One and the same. Today the 79-year-old blonde bombshell has rebuilt her reputation and heads a lifestyle empire complete with her own magazine and merchandise range.
She’s a skilled social media operator and co-hosts a show with her BFF Snoop Dogg.
Well we know Snoop loves a daily serving of green. So what’s with all the mint-coloured plates, cups and… a chicken?
This is jadeite, a highly collectable kind of glassware produced in the US from the 1930s. Canny mid-century ad men would entice suburban housewives by slipping a single measuring spoon from a jadeite set into a bag of sugar, or a citrus juicer into a crate of oranges, to encourage them to collect the whole set.
Stewart and her daughter, Alexis, are known to be avid collectors of Fire-King Restaurant Ware, an industrial-grade range prized for its heft.
Why this colour in particular?
Jadeite’s inventors chose the soothing green, milk glass to cheer people up following the Great Depression. Colour therapy and retail therapy in one. Relevant for our personal, pandemic-induced great depression, too.
How can I get my hands on it?
The traditional way would be to scour US thrift shops. But there are reputable sellers on eBay and Etsy, although you’ll have to pay through the nose for transatlantic postage and customs.
Easier on the wallet are modern reproductions. Stewart herself even got in on the act in the 1990s when she sold through Martha by Mail.
Green is the colour of money
Maybe that’s why it’s Stewart’s favourite.
