SOUNDING OFF ON DESIGN
Ex-musician taps a modern beat
British designer Tom Dixon will take the stage a few times at interior design show IDS Vancouver, which runs Sept. 22 to 25 at the Vancouver Convention Centre. A man whose list of talents seems to grow year after year, Dixon is the keynote speaker for the Azure Trade Talks on Friday and is expected to play bass (for a few songs, at least) at the opening night party.
Music is not new to Dixon; he dropped out of the Chelsea College of Art and Design in the ’80s to play bass in the band Funkapoli-tan before becoming known for his “welded selvage furniture,” designing the S Chair for Cappellini (included in MoMa’s permanent collection), and achieving success with his self-named brand, launched in 2002.
Dixon says his time as creative director for Habitat — where he worked from the late ’90s until 2008 — taught him about retail and “what sells.” He has obviously put that knowledge to good use, opening a showroom in Los Angeles this summer and shortly after, a second location in New York.
“I think America’s become very important and I think, too, Canada,” he says. “I discovered Vancouver properly a couple of years ago when we went from Mexico City all the way up to Vancouver, so we did the whole of the West Coast, including Seattle and San Francisco, and I think there’s definitely a West Coast sensibility, which I think is becoming more relevant again. It’s not just design products or architecture — there’s this whole tech thing, which has been very influential in terms of getting people to feel modern again.”
Dixon spends a good deal of his life on the road, opening stores and attending design shows. He says even though every minute of his time is usually accounted for, he makes time to leave the exhibition halls and seek out the places that have inspired him since childhood.
“I’ve always liked museums,” he says. “They’ve been a source of inspiration. As a child, I used to really love science museums.”
A personal favourite he recently discovered is Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology.
“Very, very fascinating, great artifacts and really beautiful architecture,” he says. “There was something about discovering a whole hidden culture that is so huge and so visible that British people really don’t know anything about.”
When it comes to design museums, the leading ones are pretty familiar to people, he says, but one to watch out for later this year is the new Design Museum in London.
“It’s coming in the last part of November this year,” he says. “In the old Commonwealth Institute, which is the most extraordinary building and it gives them a much bigger stage to work from.”
Not one to do things halfway, Dixon is bringing “more lighting, more accessories, more furniture, more everything” to IDS Vancouver (formerly IDS West), available to show goers through a pop-up shop on the main floor. His “fire” kitchen installation, created in collaboration with Caesarstone will also be on display; it was the fourth kitchen he designed for The Restaurant series that premiered at Salone del Mobile (Milan Design week) in April, each based on a different element: earth, water, fire and ice.
Dixon was drawn to The Restaurant project because of his love of cooking and, as a designer, his name is entangled with celebrity chefs. Through his Design Research Studio, Dixon has designed the interior for Jamie Oliver’s Barbecoa restaurant in London, the Eclectic restaurant in Paris, Stevie Parle’s Craft London and Bronte Restaurant, newly opened on The Strand, in London, overlooking Trafalgar Square.
One of his new collections, TANK, shown at Maison and Ob- jet Paris reflects his interest in hospitality.
“As we get deeper into drinking culture, our recent successes in tea, coffee and cocktails have given us the momentum to delve deeper into wine and water. TANK is an increasingly complete range of drinking and pouring vessels that are now also joined by some oversized flower vases and lanterns,” he says.
For Dixon, good design is all about the materials and his new work features aluminum, stone, glass, wax, wood, brass and iron.
“The success and desirability of the product is inextricably tied in to the substance that forms it, and a great deal of our success comes from the materials with which it is made,” he says. “But more than that, the mutation of the raw material into an object of desire or an artifact of function is the real alchemy of a designer.”
When asked how he feels about Britain leaving the EU and the impact it might have on his brand, he says:
“It’s definitely not a great thing. I really didn’t like the undemocratic nature of the EU, but I don’t think it’s a great idea to leave and I voted to stay.
“I think there’s been a lot of anger, which I find quite upsetting and it would have been angry if it had gone the other way as well. Half the population would have been angry whichever way it went, there was never going to be a great result whatever happened right? I think there’s a series of very serious danger signs for all kinds of reasons, but in the short run, nothing’s really changed at all. In a way for the business, for a while, the pound dropping is a good thing for us because we’re a big exporter so it’s not really affected us. But I do employ, probably half of my staff are not UK passports, lots of Kiwi s actually, and for them it’s a very nerve-racking time.”
I think there’s definitely a West Coast sensibility, which I think is becoming more relevant again. TOM DIXON