Since Proper began as a fanzine many years ago the amount of pies in which we have fingers has risen considerably. That’s why we now sell candles. Working with the multi-talented Hope Roalfe, via her Hopeworld brand, we donned our own Hikerdelic hat and collaborated on a range of candles towards the end of last year and they came out lovely. It led us to have a further chat with Hope about how she came to be so good at making said candles and what else she’s been up to.
Hi Hope, can you tell us a little about yourself, where you’re from and what you do?
Hey, my name is Hope Roalfe. I’m a candlemaker from Buckinghamshire but living in Peckham in London – I moved here for university and never left. I cast vintage objects to make sculptural candles of mystical things like fungi, pixies, and monsters; all inspired by folklore and mysticism. Each candle’s colouring makes it one-of-a-kind, and I’m really particular with the designs I choose, they have to be full of character. The main thing I’m looking for when I source objects to cast from is whether they’re ‘cheeky’ enough. They need to have an evil smirk, or big cartoonish eyes to get chosen. I like to think that a Hopeworld candle is a cheeky creature you can keep as a friend, or burn as a sacrifice (because their faces and colours look the most awesome when they’re melting).
I called the brand Hopeworld, partly to make it incredibly personal to me, like an extension of my imagination; but also because the brand is sustainable. I think of Hopeworld as an alternate idyllic dimension, untouched by humans.
There’s a lot of candles out there that market themselves as sustainable, but use materials that are bad for us to inhale, and also awful for the environment. It’s really important to me that what I’m putting into the world isn’t harmful, so all the materials I use are sustainable; from the oils I use to scent them, to the olive wax base that’s harvested from olive oil farms in Italy.
We started speaking via Hopeworld, what led you to making candles?
We did! I love when the algorithm works like that and brings the right people together.
I started Hopeworld back in 2021. I was working as a graphic designer and I found it really unfulfilling. Staring at a screen all day just wasn’t for me, and I knew I wanted to be doing something more hands-on. I tried a bunch of mediums, and was faffing around for about a year before I fell into making candles.
The first candles I made were actually some mushrooms that I sculpted out of clay and then cast with silicone. They were terrible quality compared to the stuff I’m making now, but I remember putting them out on my table when I was selling my design work at DIY Art Market, just to fill up space on the table, and they all went in about 10 minutes. So that was when I thought ‘hmmm ok maybe I should make some more of these.’
I also discovered that I love working with wax. It’s an amazing material, super malleable, if you go wrong you can just melt it again, and it’s incredibly messy which is perfect for me. You can see from the photos what sort of state the studio gets into – neon splatters of wax everywhere. I see videos of other candlemakers online and their spaces are always so clean, I’m like ‘how?’ Mine is always a mess! I prefer it this way though; I’ve got some of my best colour combinations from seeing the ways wax has splattered whilst I’ve been pouring. There’s something about working with moulds that is really exciting too. Despite using the same colours over and over, you know how a candle is going to turn out. Each demoulding session is a dopamine hit because it’s so exciting peeling back the silicone and seeing how the colours came out.
The second design I made was the furby candle. It was cast from a toy I’ve had since I was about 8. I hadn’t really decided what I wanted Hopeworld as a brand to be yet, but I’ve always been into cute creatures and 90s memorabilia, so it felt like the right thing to do.
I sent a photo of the first one I made to my friend Jack, who’d just opened up a shop in Hoxton called Waste store, best place ever by the way. He said he’d take 20 for the store and they sold really well. After that I set up a website, started selling at markets, and geared my instagram just towards candles (it was really disjointed before this). Some people approached me via Instagram to work together, so I started making small bespoke runs of candles for other brands too. People kept buying them and I loved making them so I just kept going.
Did you envisage when you started that you might take orders from some pretty esteemed retailers?
Not at all! It was such a surprise! Getting stocked in Waste already felt like the coolest thing ever. About a month after that happened, Bankrupt on Brick Lane approached me, which was a store I loved shopping in already, so it was so cool to see my little candle family in there. About a year ago I got featured in i-D Magazine’s ‘DIY’ series which was really fun and brought in lots of new work and some really fun collaborations. I skate too, so I’ve ended up in a few skate shops that I really admire, like Tomorrow Store in Leeds and Brixton’s Baddest. Last Christmas I ended up having some candles for sale at Baddest’s stall in Selfridges, so that was a pretty special moment. It was super cool to see my candles alongside brands and makers that I’ve loved for years.
What sort of special projects have you been commissioned to do?
I’ve just finished working on a project with Adidas which was definitely the coolest thing I’ve done. I worked with a designer from The Midnight Club (a company I’ve always really admired so it was so cool to work with them), they made a 3D model to commemorate a footballer that Adidas sponsors, and I got it 3D printed and cast it into a candle. Coolest thing about that project was that it came up whilst I was travelling around New Zealand. I pitched up in a little surf town for a few days and spent the daylight hours surfing and skating, and then made candles after sunset. Was definitely living the dream life for a few days.
I also worked with Edwin last year on a huge order. Before I worked with them, I’d only ever made runs of around 50 candles, but Edwin wanted almost 5 times that. It was really fun to work to such a big scale, and I loved watching the army of candles grow and overtake my studio day by day.
I also got hired by Vans to do some candlemaking workshops in their Covent Garden store. It was really incredible to meet my community in real life and share my love for candles with them.
Most creative people have multiple strings to their bow, what else do you get up to in that regard?
To be honest I’m so busy running the business that I don’t have as much time to feed my creative hobbies anymore! I try to spend most of my free time outside, walking or skating, looking at cool plants, or going to charity shops and carboot sales to find inspiration for the brand.
My time in New Zealand has been really special because it’s allowed me to have all this free time outside with nature. I’ve been really inspired by all of the landscapes, and I can’t wait to funnel this into my new creations when I’m back in the studio.
I spent a lot of time in a place called Rotorua which was filled with geysers and geothermal pools. I was obsessed with all of the colours they produced. Nature inspires literally everything I make, but I love using neon colours which don’t turn up in the real world too often. It was really incredible to see sulphur lakes that were literally neon snot green, it felt unreal. But yeah, really lovely that I can use these cool spots I’ve seen as inspiration.
What’s the long term plan for Hopeworld and indeed yourself?
So many things! I’m half English and half kiwi, so I’d like to bring my cultural roots into my designs a little more. Each candle is a one-of-a-kind piece already, but I want to push this even further so they feel more like sculptures rather than candles. I saw a lot of Maori wood carvings of taniwha (supernatural creatures) in NZ that had shiny Paua shells imprinted as eyes. The contrast of the shell’s iridescence against the dark wood really brought the characters to life. I’d like to find a way to do this with my candles, still working out how though. I also want to work on a way to make the candles more permanent, so you can have a little piece of Hopeworld to keep even after the candles are melted.
I also have a big interest in paganism and other aspects of British folklore. Paganism isn’t about casting spells on your foes, it’s about being grateful for the beauty that’s around you and beckoning more of that into your life through rituals. I feel like my candles hold a special type of energy because each one takes so long to make (about 3 times longer than your average candle). I encourage people to burn them with an intention so that all of the energy that went into making them can go into your wishes instead. I’d really like to push this with my next collection. Candles and the esoteric have been aligned forever so it makes sense to do so.
Also, collaborations are my favourite part of the job. I’ve got a list of brands/ musicians I want to work with but I haven’t felt ready yet to reach out as I was worried I didn’t have the experience yet. I think the Adidas job made the Hopeworld dream feel like it could be reality so I feel more prepared to approach people now. To be honest it’s going really well, and there’s still so much more I want to do with the brand, so yeah, the long term plan is to keep going organically and see what pops up next. So much has happened in the last two years, so who knows what’ll come next. Hopeworld for world domination!
See more at hopeworld.studio
