STARGAZING WITH LONDON DESIGNER LEE BROOM
British product designer Lee Broom, known for his lighting, furniture and accessories, blew into town this month to discuss his new lighting collection — Observatory — at Vancouver’s Inform Interiors.
Broom launched Observatory at the Milan furniture fair (Salone del Mobile) in April and NYCxDesign in May, winning the Best of NYCxDesign 2018 for his Eclipse pendant light. The collection, he says, is loosely based around the solar system.
“It’s a slightly celestial collection exploring different shapes, reflection and refraction of light, and also this idea of being able to create constellations of lightings,” he says. “You can hang it vertically, horizontally, forward and back. I like that idea of people taking it and doing their own thing. These are pieces I want people to have for the rest of their lives.”
With a show room in New York’s Soho district, in addition to his Shoreditch home base, Broom is becoming increasingly well known on the international design stage.
He has a proclivity toward dramatic, statement-making design and is known for his flamboyance, both in his products and the way he presents them. He attributes this to two things: a background in theatre (he was a child actor and a member of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre company from age six to 11) and fashion design studies at London’s prestigious Central Saint Martins.
“In show business,” he says, “you’re doing it because you’re wanting to be up front, not in the background. I wanted to create my own universe.”
Broom has had a few lucky breaks along the way; when he was just 17, he won a fashion design competition where he was judged by Vivienne Westwood, which led to him working as an intern for the famous designer for 10 months.
This whirlwind experience, he says, had him dressing models like Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell in Paris, and having long discussions about art and the history of fashion with Westwood. The most important impression she made on him, he says, was to “do your own thing.”
Broom followed this advice, he says, when graduating from Saint Martins. He decided to launch his own brand and started approaching local bars and restaurants in his neighbourhood, asking if they ’d like some advice about interior design, something he felt he was good at. What started as small jobs — reframing mirrors, reupholstering furniture and replacing drapes — led to a major break for Broom and his then-business partner Maki Aoki with the bar Nylon in London’s financial district.
“It started off as kind of a 50,000-pound project,” he says. “Me and Maki having no experience with working with budgets, started sketching things like Murano glass chandeliers, fish tanks and big seating areas, and they were like ‘oh we love it’. They ended up getting investors involved and the budget was three-quarters of a million pounds. They brought architects on board, we designed furniture and lighting.”
Project managing the entire renovation and the resulting success of Nylon led to offers of more work for the pair, Broom says.
“It was a dream project and an intense learning curve,” he says. “The venue opened and started to win awards and it was crazy busy. It became a playpen for the financial district, because they didn’t have anything like that. It was all wine bars at the time.”
Broom launched his Lee Broom brand in 2007, and says that one day, on top of his ever-expanding product lines, he’d like to create a “pop concert” and design a hotel.
“We stay in a lot of hotels, so I’m always critiquing,” he says. “I think the two best hotels I’ve stayed in are Ett Hem in Stockholm, and Claridge’s in London.” He spent his 40th birthday at the latter.
“It was amazing,” he says. “They got everything right.”
Broom uses LED lighting in his Observatory collection, and says there has been real advancements in LED technology when it comes to high-end lighting design.
“The LEDs are made in China,” he says. “The technology there is incredible. I go there with my sketches and see what they can do, what’s possible. LED technology didn’t move very quickly, initially, but it’s moving really quick now, and I think we’re only starting to see LEDs used in very beautiful pieces.”
In show business you’re doing it because you’re wanting to be up front … I wanted to create my own universe.