We spoke to the Milan based British designer George Sowden about his first upholstery design for SCP, and ask a few questions about the thinking behind his work.
We sat down with George Sowden earlier this year in Milan, in his beautifully acquainted showroom, 44 Spazio, to discuss his new upholstery designs for SCP, his views on what constitutes “good design” and how things have changed over his career.
How was the experience of visiting the SCP factory in Norfolk?
I love factories, whether small or large, you always meet people who know what they are doing, and you learn from them. It’s all a question of understanding the people who are making things. I was really impressed by the size of the company, the willingness to just look at the drawing and then try to make it.
What about the fabric and colour choices, how did you settle on them?
The factory has a room full of fabric samples, so I walked in there and within about ten seconds my eye fell onto this fabric on the top shelf that looked interesting. It turned out to be exactly the fabric I was looking for. Which is this SV Rami fabric, made in Sweden, with fantastic colours, and I didn’t have to look any further.
"It's all a question of understanding the people who are making things."
George Sowden
Can you give us an insight into the product development process?
We had a simple drawing of the chair. Of course the drawing of the chair was not quite as soft as the final result, but when you do a drawing, and then maybe a technical drawing, or a rendering, you always do it as you think you would like it to be, but then it will never be exactly like that. I don’t like to force it, because you will drive people mad. There is a way of doing things, so you need to find out how far they can go, are prepared to go, or how far it is even worth going. Because sometimes some of my designer friends get very upset when things are not exactly as they drew it, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense, because the quality of something is also about how it is made. If you design a jacket, and you go to a lousy tailor, it’s not going to be as good as if you go to a good tailor. The final quality of the chair was totally unexpected. It was perfect, I had nothing to say.
"If you design a jacket, and you go to a lousy tailor, it's not going to be as good as if you go to a good tailor."
George Sowden
Did you visit a few times?
I went twice in the process. Luckily my friend John Small lives very close to the factory, and he has a lot of experience. So I asked him to go and look at it half way through the process, to do quality control. It was great having someone I trust so local to where the chair was being made. The factory has a type of chair jig, which helps you to decide on the size of the chair. I wanted to do a big chair, but the first prototype was too big. So we reduced the size, and then Sheridan (SCP’s founder) and myself decided that we should do a slightly smaller version as well (this has become the “Mini” version), and then hopefully we will do a sofa version too.
The whole process was very easy, it wasn’t a struggle to get to a certain point. The factory is very English. The whole process was very easy really.
After discussing Sowden Club chair, which is now available in two different sizes, along with a Wingback version, just launched for the London Design Festival 2024, we took the opportunity to ask George a few questions about his working life in Milan and about how his views on design have changed over his career.
What does an ideal working day look like at the moment?
Well I get up at 5.30 or 6 o’clock, I tend to deal with China before my breakfast, as they are half-way through their day. We have a long breakfast, Natalie (Du Pasquier – George’s partner) and myself, usually an hour and a half. Then we walk to work with the dog, get here by half past eight, nine o’clock. The office hours are fairly flexible. I have ten people working for the organisation, one in the UK, two people in China, and seven people in Milano. We have two people working on ERP and bookkeeping, and everyone else is kind of multifunctional.
Having this space in Milan must have changed things a little?
Everybody in the office loves this space. During the day people are working here, making things. So it’s a shop, but it’s also an office, there are all sorts of things going on. Sometimes the shop is open and someone is fixing their bike in the back, this kind of thing. It’s a very easy kind of space. It’s perfect. Some of the people in the office come and work down here for a bit on the laptops and then go back upstairs, it adds to the flexibility of things. I think it will change even more over time.
There is always something that you need to solve. I still work upstairs. Little engineering problems and so on, I often solve them while I am sleeping. It’s true. I often wake up in the morning with the drawing in my head. I come down and talk to Christian, and I make a simple sketch of the solution, and we go from there. That is the seed that eventually becomes a complicated mathematical model to solve something.
Have your views changed on design since you first came to Milan?
I think I was like all people of my generation in that we were radicalised by modernism. One of the most destructive phrases ever invented was “less is more”, because when you are an eighteen year old at art school, it burns a hole in your brain. You don’t really understand what it means and you don’t really know where it came from, and you end up using it as a prop – as an aid. I think you have to be careful when you’re talking to young people, or anybody really, because it’s very easy to put obstacles in the way of people. In the end I think that modernism unfortunately became an excuse for cheap buildings. I was always fascinated by decoration, which you couldn’t even mention. I think in my final year of study, I had a teacher who believed that if it wasn’t reinforced exposed concrete, it wasn’t architecture. So I made a plan for a Student Union building that was covered in wallpaper, they were not happy at all. I didn’t really know why I was doing it, but these are the kind of things that I talked about when I wrote to Sottsass to apply for a job. When I came here to Milano and discovered this other side of design, which is representation, communication, poetry, meaning, these kinds of things, and gradually I managed to de-radicalise myself.
I remember one day with Sottsass, which was the best lesson in design I ever had. He draws the line on the table and says: “on one side of the line is an infinite way of doing things right, on the other side of the line there is an infinite way of doing things wrong”. So, take your choice, and it’s true. Poetry is infinite, expression is infinite, decoration is pure design, it has no other use except to communicate, like a song. And through these things you learn all these kinds of things about yourself.
One of the nicest things about the Memphis moment, was that it was a moment when all this modernist dogma was thrown out of the window, and people became individuals. When you are an individual, you have to justify what you are doing.
Do you have any hopes for the future?
Peace and goodwill to all men.
A big thank you to George and his team for making this interview possible.
