In Conversation With Tom Dixon

One of the world’s most celebrated contemporary designers and brands, the Brit icon is a fitting example of success purely because of his unfettered imagination and fearless ability to do the extraordinary every time.

- Sneha Ullal Goel

The video is unmistakably ’80s, the age of experimental fashion and music. The song is As Time Goes By, with a seriously catchy hook, by a massive eight member Brit band named Funkapolitan with not one by three singers in the lead. Quite a crowd, yes, but there’s a familiar face – a gaunt 20-something man wearing cigarette pants and a mint shirt, is strumming the bass guitar wrung up almost to his chest. He’s in the background doing his business, a blink and miss almost. But if you know your music, a funk song is nothing without a strong bass line....

Three decades later, that talented musician is sitting in front of me, still wearing tailored suits, relishing his masala dosa in the breakfast lounge at Le Meridien New Delhi, at 7.15 am. Only we know him better today as the multifaceted design genius, Tom Dixon. He graciously agreed to meet with me hours before his first ever lecture in India at ID Symposium, a part of India Design ID this February. What emerged was not just a repartee of anecdotes but a humbling, eye-opening outlook on the future of the industry he belongs in.