Assembly Of Objects’ Zoë Black Picks Her Favourite London Designers

Zoë Black is founder of the newly launched design gift service, Assembly of Objects (AxO). A former art gallery director, Black formed AxO from her natural interest in seeking out the ultimate gift, and presenting designers, makers and artists to the world. Black collaborates with a breadth of creatives to collate the items that fill her eclectic gift boxes. With her discerning eye, curatorial background, and knowledge of independent makers, Black has a distinctive perspective on design, and here she shares with us some of the London creators who inspire her.

 

Eleanor Pritchard || Eleanor Pritchard

Eleanor Pritchard was one of Black’s first design discoveries in London. Having met Pritchard at her now very busy open studios down at Cockpit Arts in Deptford many years ago, Black picked up some of her beautiful blankets. Black remarks, “They are very precious yet used every single day – the realisation of design nirvana.” Eleanor has gone from strength to strength, collaborating with interesting designers, with her textile goodness featured in countless magazines and blogs. Her work has an honesty about it, combined with patterns and colourways that just get it consistently right. It’s impossible for her products to not improve any space they are put in.

 

Chris Keenan || Chris Keenan

Having known Keenan for many years, Black has been a regular to his enchanting south London studio for a considerable time. A highly skilled ceramicist, Keenan apprenticed under Edmund de Waal. Working in porcelain and producing pieces of exceptionally refined technique and signature glazes, Keenan has exhibited internationally and was recently invited for an artist residency in Japan. Notably, as well as producing his own work, Keenan fosters talent and the spirit of the London ceramics community around him.

 

Forest + Found || Max Bainbridge & Abigail Booth

“A true combination of their strengths, this duo produce sublime textiles and honest hand-worked wooden items,” says Black. Max makes use of the local trees from nearby Epping forest while Abigail extracts her dyes from similarly local and natural sources. Their considered design, use of traditional techniques and direct relationship to their environment are an irresistible combination.

 

Pinch Design || Russell Pinch and Oona Bannon

Russell Pinch and Oona Bannon’s furniture company was another early discovery of Black’s at a London trade fair many years ago. Still based in Clapham, this is British design and manufacturing at its best. Black tells us she wakes up every morning next to one of their Harlosh bedside tables, and is contemplating asking the company to make gift boxes for AxO in the future.

 

Margaret Howell || Margaret Howell

Deservedly known as a doyenne of British fashion, Howell’s clothes and accessories are unrelentingly elegant. Black proclaims, “I adore the clothes and accessories of Margaret Howell, and recently purchased an anorak of hers made from Ventile – a British fabric designed in the 30’s for military use that will ensure I am forever dry despite all English weather can throw at me.” Howell champions fellow British designers in different home-based arenas, from midcentury architecture to studio ceramics and Ercol furniture. Her Wigmore Street store has an excellent selection of books on the designers behind her favourite finds.

 

Hand & Eye Studio || Thomas Housden

Thomas Housden left his architecture day job and has clearly put his heart and soul into this venture, with delightful results. Producing gorgeous lighting that manages to be both earthy and sleek, these are pieces that would suit every possible interior. While currently small and specialised, Black predicts Housden’s attention to detail and celebration of materials, form and process will see this London-based studio become hugely successful.

 

Max Lamb || Max Lamb

So much about Max Lamb captures the grit and innovation of London. He is a true designer in the way he turns his hand to every material with unexpected results. His work is always surprising, inventive, clever and original. Working with everything from marble to ceramics, timber, enamelled aluminium and polystyrene, copper and quartz, Lamb makes materials his own. He has developed the intriguing marmoreal – an engineered marble that London’s aesthetes have seriously fallen for.

 

Aram Gallery || Daniel Charny & Zeev Aram

Housed in a Covent Garden warehouse building since 1964, the Aram store has devoted an entire gallery level to new work by up and coming designers. Like Assembly of Objects, helping raise the profile of relatively unknown designers is something Aram has always deemed a vital part of what they do. The recent Blend show, as part of this year’s London Design Festival, was typical of their programme – you will always come away with a new discovery.

 

Tobias & the Bear || Ruth Cozens & Leanne McKeever

Great London-based childrenswear designers Tobias & the Bear was founded by two mothers with luxury fashion backgrounds. Their highly addictive range includes perfect unisex wear for the little ones in your life, now with matching outfits for the rest of the family too. Stylish yet practical mothers breathe a sigh of relief – their designs are spot-on.