Scene Makers

Set designers Isabel + Helen have captured the imagination of London’s fashion players

- Harriet Lloyd-Smith

In 2012, two young graphic design students presented a project at London’s Chelsea College of Arts. They’d concocted an idea for a Sky Arts ident that explored ‘anticipation’ through bowling balls and a steamrollered cake. They were chuffed with the result; their tutor less so: ‘Just please promise me you’ll never, ever work together again,’ he implored.

Thankfully, British set designers Isabel Gibson and Helen Chesner – AKA Isabel + Helen – ignored their tutor and, in the seven years since graduating, have enjoyed a swift ascent thanks to their combined knack for kinetic and commanding spatial design. They’ve already been around the block, working on low-key retail interventions, quirky personal projects, and space-altering fashion showstoppers. From Nike to Tate Modern, RIBA to Hermès – no job is too big or small, and few tasks out of the question.

The magic happens in their south London studio, occupying the old laundry room of a former Victorian house for ‘destitute and disorderly’ girls. Gibson and Chesner are everything but disorderly – two down-to-earth women with a bank of unearthly ideas.

Pre-Isabel + Helen, Gibson worked at multidisciplinary design agency Hotel Creative and Chesner assisted spatial designer Robert Storey. ‘We never intended to set up a studio straight away, but it was all quite natural,’ says Gibson. The duo’s first collaborative venture was an interactive ‘Constructivist Playground’ commissioned by London’s V&A Museum for a celebration of Russian art and culture in 2014.