The Best is Made in Britain
January 26, 2006 | Elif SUNGUR
Flying the tag with pride are a growing number of British furniture-making firms.
They are rescuing "made in Britain" and turning it once again into a clout-carrying label.
They are using London's unequalled design talent, then blending old crafts and new technology to make the products.
The result is fine furniture that owes nothing to Lithuania, Poland, Thailand or all points East.
"Our mission is to bring furniture manufacturing back into the UK," announces Tamara Caspersz, development and marketing director of Established & Sons, which launched at Milan in April last year.
Her company has done just that.
But this is advanced design coaxed from a bevy of top names.
It is manufacturing for the new millennium - using computers to mould seductively shiny plastics, seamless and sensuously smooth.
Witness the all-in-one organic flowing form of Zaha Hadid's dining table and the sweep of Amanda Levete's Chester, a chaise-longue that compresses the familiar chunky chesterfield shape to a low, long curve.
Metalworking is equally advanced, with top tools to extrude, cut and bend.
Alexander Taylor's Fold light ingeniously fulfils its name: it is made from a single sheet of metal cut and manipulated into a neat little number that even has a lamp shade.
Meanwhile, Benchmark in rural Berkshire
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