A PINCH OF PERFECTION

Step into the new Pinch showroom in London’s Pimlico to see British furniture at its finest

Pinch’s elegantly understated new furniture shop presents only a few of the brand’s instant classics at one time (they rotate designs every six weeks), but husband-and-wife team Russell Pinch and Oona Bannon’s clean, traditionally inspired aesthetic is always clear. When the duo founded Pinch in 2004, they sat down together at their kitchen table and drew up a manifesto. They wanted to ‘make good use of resources, both in terms of materials and in terms of makers and manufacturers,’ and to design furniture with ‘proper integrity’. Recently, they found that crumpled piece of paper tucked away at the back of a drawer, and the words still ring true. ‘ We should frame it,’ says Oona, though there’s no real need: Pinch’s designs, from the ‘Frey’ sideboard (right, from £5,025) to the ‘Achilles’ dining table (above right, £4,250) all convey these principles with an understated elegance and simplicity. Stop by the new showroom on Bourne Street in Pimlico during London Design Festival to marvel at Pinch’s first collaboration with fifth generation Stoke-on-trent pottery, 1882 Ltd. The ‘Flare’ collection of pitchers, jugs, mugs and bowls (inset above, from £45 for a mug or bowl) is modern and sculptural, with a tactile quality. The Pinch design signature is evident even on the smallest of objects. As Oona explains, the range ‘makes a virtue of its materials and the expert craftspeople who produce it’ (pinchdesign.com).