About Emma Russell:

Emma’s first job in her early 20s was as PA to the Press & Advertising Officer at Liberty’s in Regent Street. Being surrounded by high quality textiles in beautiful printed colourways became the background to her working life, and fostered a love of colourful ‘second skins’. Through further posts as an illustrated non-fiction publishing editor and a Montessori directress, colour continued as an integral theme in her working life. On her first trip to India in 2008, a visit to a silk factory set her on a path of ‘colourholicism’. Fifteen years working for Beverley and Luke Hardy in the Anokhi shops in Bath and Wells confirmed that there was no hope of recovery - she was hooked. When, after 40 years, the Hardys decided to close the shops, Emma asked if she could take over the Wells shop - and in 2025 Riot’us was hatched. She says it is like a return to childhood for her, when one of the joys she and her siblings experienced was playing for hours in her family’s dressing-up box, before self-consciousness or inhibition set in. Now she gets to play whenever she wants - and doesn’t mind what anyone else thinks, as long as they join in!