Do similar principles apply to the actual process of designing both furniture and clothing?
The creative process involved in designing clothes and furniture is actually very similar, so it wasn’t so difficult to make the transition from one to the other. In both cases, it’s a question of harnessing your imagination to create objects in three-dimensions, and both require you to translate a design philosophy into something that works in the context of your customers’ real lives. The challenges you face in bringing your creations to life are also very similar – all to do with materials and manufacturing processes. But there is one crucial difference that makes designing for the home perhaps more difficult: a piece of furniture has to be conceived to be much more durable. It’s a fact that people change their clothes more frequently than they change their furniture. So this reality demands a different approach to that which you employ when designing a fashion collection – it needs to be timeless. Thus, when you innovate in this field, you need to do so by delivering classic style.
