PUSHING BOUNDARIES British designer Lee Broom pairs his creative uses of materials with bold presentations that surprise and inspire

Design darling Lee Broom cuts a striking figure; and with his new platinum hair, he’s unmissable even in a crowd. When we meet him at the Space Furniture Asia showroom in Singapore, the well-coiffed product designer appears as chic as his creations. The British talent is known for his dramatic flair, conveyed through the graphic silhouettes of his furniture and lighting pieces, as well as in the presentation of each collection. Since the founding of his eponymous brand in 2007, Broom has showcased his works in memorable venues, including a delivery van (playfully dubbed Salone del Automobile) that travelled from his boutique in

London to the fashionable streets of Milan. “I like that when people come to see my shows, they don’t just have a visual or tactile reaction; they have some kind of emotional response,” quips Broom. In April, Broom launched Park Life, an exhibition that showcased his key collections in a 4,000sqft maze at the basement carpark of Space Furniture Sydney; a smaller version of the installation was also unveiled during Singapore Design Week at Space Furniture Asia. Here, he discusses his brand’s key milestones and his diverse sources of inspiration.

What inspired the concept for the Park Life exhibition?

I love carparks, I think they’re really cool spaces and I wanted to do a maze for many years; I thought it would be an interesting way of taking a journey through all my product ranges and my career. It’s actually like a modernist version of an 18th-century pleasure garden. You have white gravel, which is synonymous of stately homes in England and France, and you have Neoclassical statues around, and corridors in grey to make it more contemporary.

How does your multidisciplinary background shape your design process?

When I’m designing furniture and lighting, I’m not necessarily thinking about how it’s going to be like in a home or hotel. I’m designing in a more emotional way because of my background in theatre; I was a child actor growing up. There’s subtlety in some pieces and others have more theatricality about them, but they’re always very contemporary.

I trained in fashion; I worked for Vivienne Westwood before I became a product designer. I found myself running my business as a fashion brand and thinking about it seasonally. I’m developing my style with each collection but maintaining an overarching design ethos. It’s given my brand a point of difference; you don’t necessarily know what to expect each year. All of these different disciplines instil this emotional way of designing and seeing everything I do in the end presentation as a sort of performance.

Lighting is an important segment of your brand. Why does this category stand out to you?

I think lighting is the finishing touch to any interior, much like jewellery or an accessory. But at the same time, it has a functionality to it; it has to illuminate the space. It also gives us an opportunity to create a talking point.

You’re known for combining craftsmanship with modern shapes. Which materials are you experimenting with right now?

At the moment, we’re doing a lot of metalwork. We’re actually working not so much with the material but the development of how we can incorporate LED technology into decorative lighting. It’s very contemporary but has a sense of classicism as well. We’re also looking at working with resin and concrete. We’re always experimenting in the studio; you never know where it will end up.

Which era is your biggest design influence right now?

I always tend to go back to the Art Deco and Bauhaus periods. It’s such a revolutionary time in design and manufacturing. There are pieces designed in the 1920s and 1930s that you would look at now and it would not look out of place in modern society, so I can only imagine how controversial it would have been at the time that they were released. I like many different periods in furniture, art and architecture, including 18th-century pieces and Renaissance; what I tend to do is to mix them all up.

“I LIKE THAT WHEN PEOPLE COME TO SEE MY SHOWS, THEY DON’T JUST HAVE A VISUAL OR TACTILE REACTION; THEY HAVE SOME KIND OF EMOTIONAL RESPONSE”

Tell us more about your brand’s key milestones.

I think the key milestone for us was the Crystal Bulb, which is our cutcrystal LED lightbulb, released in 2012. We designed it, prototyped it and did the first production run all in eight weeks and presented it in Milan. That’s been the biggest selling product we’ve ever released. It was also the product that took us into the public eye because it’s one of the most affordable Lee Broom products that you can buy but it’s probably the most expensive light bulb you’re ever going to buy; a nice balance of being affordable and luxurious. One of my favourite collections is the Nouveau Rebel, which I did in 2014. This collection was produced with Carrara marble. That was the first time I worked with that material and I’ve worked a lot with it since then. It felt like we pushed boundaries with what could be done with the material to get it into this thin layer that can be illuminated. It’s luxurious and industrial; it makes the material very honest.