We met with the Super Buy British designer Faye Toogood, who was fresh from the Stockholm furniture fair, where she was a guest of honor, and Maison et Objet in Paris, where she was appointed designer of the year for 2025.
Start of her career as a journalist The world of interiorsShe was an assistant, then a stylist and then a decoration editor. It was an experience that she wrote with the depth and width. After several years she needed a change. She wanted to go into something 3D and tangible and began to experiment with various media, including fashion, furniture and sculpture and her approach remained brave and avant -gardened. It was initially difficult because she was one of the few designers in the UK. However, she found success and is now leading a 25-person studio that she claims a perfect number, so that she can work more closely with every person.
One of her first great success was the Roly-Poly chair, a mixture of tender and brutal to which the public reacted strongly. It became an icon, a symbol for its unique design approach. “The chair is better known than me,” she notes. In Maison et Objet, she created an installation called “Womanifesto”, a striking, surrealistic representation of her subconscious. (This was a topic both at the show and at events in the city during the fair.)
At the moment toogood has a show called called Assemblage 7: Lost and found II In Friedman Benda in New York City – her fourth solo exhibition with the gallery, which runs until March 15, 2025. In it she takes two media (English oak and Purbeck marble) and conveys time, the high quality of British craftsmanship and material landscape. “My driving force is the desire to make our lives less common. Whether through clothing, furniture or objects, I try to make people's lives more beautiful, interesting and sculpture. It is always a question of geometry, sculpture and materials. “
Faye Toogood defines the design with avant -garde vision new
Interior architecture: You work in several fields, including interior design, furniture design, fashion and more. How are these separate disciplines match?
Faye Toogood: Working in various disciplines – interior, art, furniture, fashion – takes naturally and comes from the desire to explore and express creativity in several forms. Without formal design training, I have the freedom to bring unique ideas from a genre to another and to promote a cross pollination of concepts that are both enriching and innovative. Every project in my studio, regardless of its nature, informs and inspires each other.
Within the studio, the team works side by side and of course there are cases in which ideas cross, be it in color, shape or materials. We also encourage the team to immerse yourself in projects outside of their skills so that we can mix and share our skills. Often an idea or a narrative also influences the work for a certain period of time using the studio-related “earth” the material of a limited roly poly chair, the colors of a winter collection and the structured pigment for a hand-painted coat.
Despite the different contexts, a consistent thread is carried out by all of our projects: meticulous attention to detail. Regardless of whether we build a piece of furniture, design an interior or create a fashion collection, the process is rooted in deep respect for craftsmanship and material.
ID: You are known to work for the representation of women, which was a focus of Maison & Objet this year. How does your visibility and work benefit other women in the design industry?
FT: When I started, very few women were in the design industry. I am glad to say that today's situation is much better, but there is still no balance between male and female designers. So many women work in the design industry – for example in curation, marketing – but we need more to get to the foreground of the design.
As a woman, I fought at the beginning of my career. I thought I would not be taken seriously as a female designer, and I cut color, textiles and decoration from my practice when I felt that they were considered typical feminine.
Fortunately, the culture has shifted around the design and I think the design room is more open and encouraging for women. I hope the visibility I have reached, and maybe also my unconventional way to design, will inspire other women to become a designer.
ID: Her presentation was called “Womanifesto” at Maison et Objet. Can you unpack what you wanted to achieve?
FT: “Womanifesto” was very personal. It was an emptying from my artist's brain and the designer – an attempt to reveal the four parts of my subconscious that are the guiding principles of my work: drawing, sculptures, material and landscape. The installation was divided into four rooms to illustrate each of these topics and how they are an integral part of the work of the studio – both today and in the future.
Drawing has become more and more important for the studio, and I am striving to explore and use more patterns and color. The sculpture consists of geometry and shape, a thread that connects everything we do. Materials are the essence of toogood and the starting point of all of our projects. Landscape has always been an essential inspiration for me and I see their influence in my work as a way to combine humanity and nature.
ID: You said that you let your mind hike and use the daydream instead of using technology. How does this process inform your work and how does it lead to physical designs?
FT: I do not use a computer for design and try my best to remove myself from outside influences and distractions, which is a challenge in our visually loud world. I like to bring myself into an almost childish game state in order to create unconsciously as possible. I work in 3D with everyday materials – cardboard, wire, adhesive tape, canvas. I will work on shapes and geometry in the miniature that arrive in a series of Maquettes before we start building forms in full.
ID: How did the work in the magazine help to shape your views of design, fashion and more?
FT: In my early twenties I got a job The World of the interior Magazine and worked as an interior editor for eight years. I was interested in reinvention and change, and that's exactly what I did – every month was a new concept for an interior. What I liked at work at work World of the interior It was not just about interiors. Here I learned architecture, antiques, art, materials and interiors. We covered everything from embroidery to a house in Africa to an archive with someone. Objects or rooms had no hierarchy – we could have a teapot from the 18th century, a paper stool, a squat in London or a Swedish palace. Everything was treated with the same awe. It taught me to be experimental – we had a magazine, we had little budgets and I often created surroundings from very little. I also learned how important the connection to people and humanity is and that it was not just about trends and fashion.
ID: If you have formed your own brand, what was your manifesto?
FT: I wanted to find an expressive, energetic world full of creative freedom that focused on creating objects in order to make our lives less common. I saw my practice as an agent for changes. My curiosity and fascination has led to an interdisciplinary career – I like to work on the edge of art, industry and design.
ID: Your Roly-Poly chair is an undisputed icon. They said it helped them understand what a female designer is. Can you expand that?
FT: Roly-Poly was a shift in geometry and aesthetics. It was designed when I was pregnant with my first child. The friendly, playful, rounded forms were a departure from the angles and hard lines of my previous work. This shift reflected my journey into motherhood and saw the world with a child's eyes; Everything had to be smooth and fall! Roly-Poly became a spearhead for a number of products and rooms with softer, rounded shapes.
Before this time I started, I didn't want to be put into the handicraft bracket, so I produced all these strong angular furniture from heavyweight materials such as bronze, mesh, steel and concrete. I hate being an increase in my route. And since I was already an outsider – and had no official design training – I was able to assert myself as someone who does not stick to prescribed ideas about what an artist should be.
ID: You grew up in the English landscape without a television. How did nature and your process of building and arranging natural materials inspire your work?
FT: So much of my work is the natural British landscape inspired – the materials, shapes and colors. As children, we had neither a television nor a lot of toys at home, so that a large part of our time was spent outdoors. I loved to collect natural objects – stones, springs, leaves – and would arrange them for hours on shelves in my room. This passion has continued and I find the landscape a constant source of inspiration for shape, colors and materials.
ID: I read this for their first collection that they wanted to bring together with other things. Can you discuss this dichotomy?
FT: I like to play with stories, dichotomies and polar opposites – when male and female, precious and raw, urban and landscape, natural and artificial and soft and hard. It enables me to create tensions and stories that can sometimes be uncomfortable. I also think it is about questioning value: a shift in value, a new value system.
ID: You once said: “I try to make people's lives more beautiful, interesting and sculpture.” Please discuss how your design approach achieves this.
FT: I think that my design work is less about solving functional problems and more about connecting with people. I believe that people want objects in their lives because they like to live with them or because they make them feel good, whether it is a coat, a chair or a cup. Good materials, sculptural shape, craftsmanship and elements of the landscape are my ingredients with which I can create and with which I can resonate with people on an emotional level.
