ON THE GO

Tom Dixon just can’t sit still. The award-winning, self-taught maverick British designer-businessman is easily bored and always searching for his next new project. “My observation is that in the modern world, a brand is no longer a fixed, enclosed unit,” he says. Writer Y-JEAN MUN-DELSALLE finds out what keeps him experimenting and how he thinks the furniture industry has – or has not – evolved.

- Y-JEAN MUN-DELSALLE

Tom Dixon lives in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction with his body of work. This pushes him to keep on going and trying new things. “I can’t even look at anything without thinking I could have done slightly better. It’s not because the thing is bad but because I know more.

As I didn’t have formal training nor a certificate to say I was allowed to do what I do, every day is still magical,especially as it was never a decision of mine to be a designer in the first place. It grew on me as I made things. I was astonished that people liked my ideas so much that they were prepared to pay for them. Otherwise, I’d have been doing something else.”

He views his lack of conventional design education as a major advantage as it has allowed him to experiment without constraints. Going to work these days feels like a playground as he has set up his business – spanning furniture and lighting to interior design through his practice Design Research Studio – in such a way that he can dabble in a variety of trades, some days working more like an engineer or a graphic designer and others like a businessman or branding guy.

Designer Upcycling

Early last year, Tom launched Press, a series of fat, chunky and grooved vases, bowls and candleholders made of industrially pressed glass, as well as psychedelic Swirl vases produced from recycled marble powder blended with pigment and resin and inspired by ikebana. The accessories collections will be expanded into furniture at an all-day event in multiple locations called 24 Hours in Paris.