they started timidly with home ranges featuring their characteristic insignia: think versace, hermes (they also did and re-did furniture), paul smith, armani and missoni. and you know what to expect: medusa heads and gold, beautifully intricate primary colour and horse riding motifs, syncopated colourful stripes, a world of earth tones and soothing jigsaws. why not use your trademark and in-house designers to conquer a new market segment?

it went as far as mass production brands as zara and h&m having their own home ranges. because that very thick layer of low-end clients have apartments, too. why not help them out by offering a range of cheap, cute home items? i always dreamed that when h&m opened here, they’d bring along their mail order home range…

and then come my favourites, the weirdoes: rick owens and margiela, diesel and acne. they did limited collections of exploratory items with high production values aka high final price. but that is expected from them: it is their ethos – design bordering on art addressed to a very narrow market and to a slightly wider group of adoring fans who will give and arm and leg to own one of those cult pieces.

rick owens put out his monolithic take on furniture and then made a stone bedroom for a dead princess as an installation. he cites brancusi as one of his inspirations and it shows in the heavy, linear shapes and the materials he uses.

ps: if you are in london until november the 19, check his new work show. see his website for details.

maison martin margiela, another deeply experimental brand, dabbled in furniture design with their geometries variables collection in collaboration with italian brand cerruti baleri.

and sister-brand diesel (they are both owned by renzo rosso‘s otb – only the brave – holding) released a collection called, how else?, successful living, with moroso, the italian furniture giant.

acne‘s poly-orientation is in its dna and their experimental nature is embedded in the design of the furniture line that includes distorted, asymmetric pieces upholstered in denim created by acne creative director jonny johansson using swedish household name carl malmsten‘s new berlin sofa as a starting point. so yes, they are meant to make you think you may be hallucinating…

money issues aside, i’d furnish my place with acne’s lsd-trip and diesel’s comfy pieces.

what about you?

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