When the recession first began to bite last year it was as if people thought the world was about to stop. They were caught like rabbits in the headlights of the abyss.  As it has turned out the world did not stop turning, the stars did not go out, and not everyone went out of business. Instead, since then there have been subtle shifts and changes, more emotional than physical, whose waves have resonated and rippled through all areas of our lives, including that of design. Affecting consumers, manufacturers and designers.

Until this moment the phenomenal popularity of makeover shows and the focus on celebrity lifestyles managed to produce an anxiety in people who thought their existence would be validated if they bought the right “stuff”.  Magazines encouraged people to “get the look for less”, and this all fed in to people’s  insecurity. They hoovered up anything that glittered, and the trend became that people were happy to pay £500 for a “classic design” copy which had no intrinsic value, rather than spend £1,000 on an original which might actually be worth £1,000. Manufacturers were ready to feed this appetite by rushing to China and the Far East where they could churn out the numbers and maximise their margins, without a thought for the more emotional/cerebral part of the consumer experience. It was money for old rope, leaving the consumers with possessions that were often of no real value – without any originality, or integrity in either design or manufacturing.

(more…)

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Tubular metal furniture began in 1909 with an Italian manufacturing company by the name of Dalmine. They began making seamless steel tubes for commercial use. The modernist designers of the time were followers of the Bauhaus teachings and focused on “Design for the masses”.

In 1914 a company in Japan also began manufacturing seamless steel tubes, and in 1954 two companies opened for business in Latin America. The metal furniture trend even spread to America where companies such as Chicago and Grand Rapids Co. of Michigan began producing tubular metal furniture.Tubular metal spread through out the world quickly during the first half of the 20th century.

(more…)

The first evidence of humans taking an interest in metals is from about 40,000 BC, in which traces of gold were found in caves in Spain. As of 3000 BC, Egyptians began making weapons out of iron. Five hundred years later signified the beginning of metallurgy when humans discovered how to heat tin and copper and combine them to make bronze.

1200 BC signifies the beginning of the Iron Age when the Hittites learned how to extract iron from its ore. It appears as though the Philistines enjoyed great success as a culture, in large part due to their discovery as to how to extract and work iron.

(more…)

In a day when customer service seems to have gone out the window and pride in workmanship is slipping; it is refreshing to find a company comitted to the highest standards of both…customer service and pride in their product.

Tom Faulkner provides a handmade product of steel and clear glass that looks like something from the sci-fi movies but is available now! These furniture pieces slip easily into your contemporary or traditional deco while providing years of use. Tom’s craftsmen take steel which can be “heated, beaten, rolled, cut and welded” into smooth shapes, architectural simplicity and funky forms. Don’t allow “steel furniture” to turn you away. The charm of the workmanship and the uniqueness of each piece will appear to be an investment rather than a necessity.

(more…)