Man Without A Plan

Industrial designer Tom Dixon seeks the unexpected in art as in life.

- Lily Templeton

ON A BALMY LATE summer evening, the cult British designer Tom Dixon is hosting a pre-Maison & Objet dinner at Eclectic, the trendy eatery he designed on the Seine embankment overlooking Paris’ replica of the Statue of Liberty. There isn’t a seating plan, and he’s chair-hopping to personally entertain as many of his guests as he can. “My ideal dinner is one where everyone changes places,” he says, reminiscing about one such outing he entertained in Milan. His chairs may sit in New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, but the man is as unceremonious as it gets—right down to the rumpled polo shirt and lived-in suit he’s wearing for the evening. For his work, such as the recently-expanded Tank glassware line with its striking mouth-blown glass and hand-painted copper detailing, he favors simple names and handsome shapes with a perfectly imperfect human touch.

 

Born in Tunisia to an English father and a French Latvian mother, Dixon became the lauded, self-taught designer powerhouse that he is today by luck of the draw. Schooled at the famous Holland Park comprehensive school, he left with just an A-level in pottery. Within six months, he had enrolled and dropped out of Chelsea College of Arts. A motorbike accident spelled the end of his higher education and left him with a gold tooth that flashes when he smiles. While on the mend—and dipping in the music industry—he learned to weld to fix his vehicle and segued into set-building after a second crash. As Funkapolitan, the band he was involved in, gave way to hip-hop club Language Lab, Dixon transitioned toward increasingly elaborate sets where wrecked cars and metal refused became eye-catching (if barely functional) furniture and fixtures.