words Anna Bates
Debate was rife at New York’s ICFF design fair this year about whether America will ever produce a significant furniture design scene – but we did find one American collective whose work we liked.
Rich, Brilliant, Willing – a young New York-based studio – presented a series of pieces with unlikely combinations of materials such as wood, metal and silk. Pictured here is the endearingly clunky Floor Lamp, more reminiscent of an underweight giraffe than a lighting unit.
The studio worked with the city’s “great history” of finishers and machinists, and sourced the materials from industrial suppliers to construct a finely crafted series of pieces. “There’s a general consensus that American design is at a crossroads,” says group member Alexander Williams. “But we’re interested in American manufacturing and what it has to offer. We wanted to curate the processes and present industrial manufacturing in a unique way.”
