Tom Dixon: British champion of old-fashioned interiors.

Art director of Habitat and Artek, founder of his own brand, Tom Dixon, rides around London on a motorcycle in any weather, does not wear branded clothing, prefers engineering to design and is not responsible for his words, because he believes: being identical to yourself throughout your life is boring mortal. And so, what, but his life definitely cannot be called boring. As well as the work, in which there was a place for both art and manual labor, and industry, and top management.

When Tom Dixon unexpectedly took over as art director of the legendary Habitat company, founded by Terence Conran, in 1998, the news was received with skepticism. Dixon's friends and admirers feared that the essentially administrative work would turn off the creative tap of the designer, who had always had a reputation as a maverick. In business circles, doubts of a different kind prevailed: could a self-taught designer without any experience working in corporations cope with the responsibilities assigned to him?

Both fears turned out to be in vain: Dixon significantly increased the company's profitability by refreshing the Habitat collections of furniture and home goods updated versions design classics of the 20th century, as well as works by young designers from around the world. At the same time, he did not curtail his own creative activity - on the contrary, it was during the period of work at Habitat that Dixon finally opened his own brand Tom Dixon, which both cooperates with large furniture companies in Europe and produces its own furniture, lighting and accessories.

Etch lamps

Large Cone Lighting, Tall Chair, Slab Dining Table

In 2004, Dixon became the creative director of another iconic furniture company - the Finnish Artek, founded by the great Alvar Aalto and, according to Dixon, the only living and thriving offspring of the modernist era.

Beat lamps

In 1980, could twenty-one-year-old Dixon, having just dropped out of Chelsea Art School (motorcycle accident, three months to recover, expulsion for non-attendance), imagine that a quarter of a century later he would head the design departments of two reputable furniture companies and open his own bureau? No - if only because at that time he was not yet thinking about a career as a designer.

Honestly, I can't remember ever wanting to be a designer. This gradually came to me as I rejected thoughts of becoming an artist or a craftsman. Even today I prefer the idea of ​​being an industrialist.

After another road accident, he had to abandon his career as a bass guitarist in the group Funkapolitan. Strapped for cash, Dixon had to learn welding in order to fix his motorcycle (the accidents did not affect his love for this type of transport). And this process captured him so much that he began to cook everything that came to hand. He literally walked through landfills in search of scrap metal in order to transform old pieces of iron into something new without any idea and without any system. The result was an abstract sculpture.

I was immediately captivated by the welding... hypnotized by the thin strip of molten metal that I viewed through darkened glasses. Instant fusion of metal parts. It had nothing to do with the seriousness of craft or the pomp of design: it was industry. It suited my impatience perfectly, allowing me to create, destroy, adapt and remake designs in an instant. When people started buying it, I realized that I had discovered new uniform alchemy. I turned a piece of metal into gold.

True, his works became “golden” only after they were discovered and immediately put into production by Giulio Cappellini, the owner of the Italian furniture trendsetter Cappellini. When, at the instigation of Cappellini, Dixon's S-Chair and Bird chairs became the most fashionable interior items, not to mention the season - the decade, Tom Dixon was 26 years old.

S-Chairs

Bird seat

A few years later, the S-Chair was included in the exhibition of the New York Museum contemporary art.

The nineties continued both Dixon's collaboration with Cappellini and his fascination with metal: the Kitchen Chair made from ladles and pans and the sculptural Pilon Chair are examples of both.

But, as the designer said in one of his few interviews, it is important for him to “recreate himself” from time to time. Another such “reboot” marked the beginning of his interest in plastic and light. He experimented not only with form, but with the very possibilities of the material - he even patented original way plastic molding.

Fresh Fat Chair

Invention has always been and remains more interesting and more important to Dixon than design. The main fruit of Dixon's love for plastic was the Jack Light lamp, which immediately received the Millennium Mark Award (1997) and was included in the exhibitions of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco.

In the portfolio of Tom Dixon's main current project - his Tom Dixon brand - lamps and chairs still occupy a special place. Many of them are made of metal and plastic, which he still loves.

Felt floor lamps

Light Tripod Stand Floor Lamp and Large Cone Lamp

Although Dixon does not stop experimenting with new materials - for example, the Mirror Balls collection he developed in 2003 imitates a mirror (however, in reality it is still the same plastic with a metal coating).

In 2014, at iSaloni in Milan, he presented a new collection of furniture, lighting and accessories made of brass Club, and then showed a series.

And at the beginning of 2016, Dixon, together with the Danish company Ege, released a collection of carpets. Inspired by the industrial areas of London and its surroundings.

Talking about your creative method, Tom Dixon remembers his friend's words, Italian designer, who once called him a “spine designer,” meaning that his work was based on an interest in structure and construction rather than surface. Dixon himself admits that he is “more interested in invention, design and marketing than design as such.”

Path Tom Dixon the design cannot be called traditional. "I honestly can't remember ever wanting to be a designer," he says.

Born in Tunisia, Tom moved to England with his parents at the age of 4. Not yet thinking about a career as a designer, Tom is studying at art school in Chelsea until he gets into an accident that leaves him in hospital for 3 months. Having recovered, Tom does not return to school, but, having become interested in music, becomes a bass guitarist in one of the groups. Playing in nightclubs, Tom had a lot of free time during the day, which led him to a new hobby - experimenting with scrap metal, from which he creates unusual sculptures using a welding machine.
Soon new accident, in which Tom breaks his arm, blocking his path to a career professional musician, and he devotes himself entirely to creating his metal objects.
Tom Dixon believes both accidents turning points of his life: “... the first accident ended my short-term studies at art school... the second ended my career as a musician. Both were motorcycle accidents, both pushed me into a new activity and gave me time to understand my further path" According to the designer, he never regretted that he did not receive vocational education This, he believes, gives him the opportunity to make his own mistakes and forge his own path in design.

In 1985, Tom Dixon opened his workshop, Creative Salvage, which in 1994 changed its name to Space. The workshop is engaged in the creation of furniture and lamps, producing items in a single copy or limited edition. His Kitchen Chair (1987) and (1988), which deliberately lacked the perfection of execution characteristic of industrially produced products, are typical of Dixon's work from this period. Soon Tom’s sculptural works attracted the attention of amateurs and professionals, among whom was Giulio Cappellini, a legend of world design, an Italian guru in the production of designer furniture. Many “stars”, such as the English Jasper Morrison and Tom Dixon, the Australian Marc Newson, the Italian Rodolfo Dordoni or the French Bouroullec brothers, “rose” on the horizon of modern industrial design thanks to Cappellini. The meeting with Cappellini opened the way for Dixon to the world of professional design. In 1989, Cappellini began producing the S chair, which in the same year joined the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

During the '90s, Dixon's work became less craft-oriented and more sculptural in form, with the designer's interest drawn to plastics. Most significant work this period - furniture for Cappellini. In 1994, Dixon founded EUROLOUNGE to produce his own products. And the first product released by the company and which had enormous success was a lamp or, as the designer himself says, “sitting, stacking, lighting thing.” Jack Light received the Millennium Mark Award in 1997 and soon joined the exhibitions of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco.

In 1998, Tom Dixon headed the Habitat design studio, and in 2001 he was appointed its art director. By joining a company whose policy is to make good furniture accessible to everyone, the designer marked a transition from individual creative activity to mass production. As artistic director of HABITAT, Dixon collaborates with leading designers, releasing new versions of established furniture pieces from Verner Panton, Ettore Sottsass and Robin Day, as well as selling furniture from Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Enoch Hans and Mark Newson.

He continues to take on new projects as an independent designer, designing for numerous European companies as well as his own company, founded in 2001, which bears his name. In 2004, he was appointed art director of Artek, being also a co-owner of this large Finnish furniture manufacturer, founded by Alvar Aalto back in 1934. According to the designer: “Artek is perhaps the only company, which has remained unchanged since the era of modernism. It has a rich cultural and historical heritage and a unique position in Finnish society.” Tom Dixon sees his role in the company as preventing the company from withering and breathing into it new life and give it the opportunity to revive its former significance.

Dixon is also the director of the Bombay Sapphire Foundation, a long-term sponsor of innovative design ideas and organizer of the BOMBAY SAPPHIRE DESIGNER GLASS COMPETITION. With the support of the foundation, one of the latest works Dixon is the longest sofa in the world, the length of which is 45 m. The sofa was exhibited at Milan airport during the days when the famous furniture exhibition i Saloni Milano was held in Milan.

Speaking about his creative method, Tom Dixon recalls the words of his friend, Italian designer Fabio Novembre, who called Dixon a “vertebral designer,” meaning that the basis of the designer’s work was his interest in structure and construction, rather than to their surface. Dixon says that if he had not become a designer, he would have been more likely to have been a civil engineer, as he is “more interested in inventing, designing and marketing than design itself.”

Dixon does not stop there, because there are still so many different things that he would like to work on. “Buildings and bridges, motorcycles and airplanes, watches and Cell phones, underwater cities and tidal power stations, fashion and luggage bags... and everything else that I haven't had to work on before,” says the designer.

Based on materials:
Terence Conran, Max Fraser "Designers on design", Conran Octopus Limited, 2004
Design of 20th century, Charlotte & Peter Fiell, Taschen, 2005

Tom Dixon was born in 1959 on the east coast of Tunisia, in the large industrial city of Sfax. When the baby was four, he and his parents (father - a purebred Englishman and mother - half French, half Latvian) moved to the UK. School years future designer are held in London. Tom attends Chelsea Art School for some time. However, a motorcycle accident interrupts his creative research: the young man has to spend three months in a hospital bed, after which he never returns to painting. But he shows remarkable musical abilities: becomes the bass guitarist of Funkapolitan, travels to perform in nightclubs and takes part in recordings music album this group. Then his first experiments with those that had served their purpose began. metal products and mechanisms. Armed with a welding machine, he creates unusual structures from scrap metal.

A second serious accident, in which a promising musician injured his hand, closed his path to the professional stage. And at the same time, she gave the world Dixon the designer. He devotes himself entirely to creating unusual objects from scrap metal (fortunately, there was plenty of materials for this in London's landfills). In 1984, together with his friends, Tom organized the first exhibition and sale of his works, which went off with a bang. Success inspires, and already on next year he founded his own workshop for the production of exclusive pieces of furniture and lighting, Creative Salvage (Creative Salvage).

Tom Dixon begins to demonstrate his works in galleries in London, Paris, and in 1989 he enters the exhibition stage in Milan. For example, with his Kitchen Chair, made from frying pans and ladles in 1987. Giulio Cappellini, head of the Italian furniture factory Cappellini, known for his flair for the latest fashion trends, just emerging in society, noticed and appreciated the potential of the young designer.

Thus began a collaboration that grew into a brilliant union between two design giants. It was then, in 1989, that the first iconic item of the English designer appeared - a chair with an elegant S-shaped frame upholstered in fabric. Cappellini also created the Bird lounge chair, Crown, Pylon, Bird2 chairs and other items designed by Tom Dixon. As in his early works, the designer experiments mainly with metal structures: for example, the Pylon chair (1989) most closely resembles a sculpture made of many steel rods, manually welded to each other.

Also in 1989, he founded the Space studio, which was engaged in the manufacture of metal furniture and design retail premises and stage design. And in 1992, a store-gallery under the same unearthly name (space means “space”) opened in London’s Notting Hill, where one could purchase works by Tom Dixon and other young designers.

However, Dixon cannot stand still. The designer begins to study a new material for himself, establishing in 1994 new company Eurolounge for the production of plastic products. The results of such a study were not long in coming. In 1997, a line of polypropylene lamps appeared, which included famous models Star, Octo, and Jack. These lighting fixtures are durable and multifunctional (so Jack, in addition to its main purpose, can be used as a seat or base for a coffee table).

The designer is busy constantly testing this world for strength. He is so masterful in testing his constituent “raw materials” - various natural and man-made materials, noting with greedy curiosity what each of them is capable of and where it will all lead. Having headed the design bureau of the largest international company Habitat, and in 2001 becoming its art director, he moved on to translate his ideas and creative searches into mass production. That's when Dixon develops new technology production of furniture from soft cooling plastic using a special portable device, resulting in the Fresh Fat collection.

As Habitat's artistic director, Tom Dixon oversees the distribution of products from various designers, as well as the release of new versions of well-known, long-loved furniture and accessories (for example, Verner Panton or Ettore Sottsass). Work for large company with many structural divisions did not completely absorb Dixon. He continues his activities as an independent designer, for which he founded his own studio in 2001, calling it simply and clearly “Tom Dixon”.

In 2004, Tom Dixon became art director and co-owner of the Finnish furniture company Artek, founded by Alvar Aalto. He defines his main task as reviving the former power of the company from the heyday of Scandinavian design. Tom Dixon knows how to surprise with his constant focus on the future. His name is well known to the public: magazines regularly write about him, and rarely any famous exhibitions and interesting “high-profile” design initiatives can be done without his participation.

Among latest works– a large, comfortable Link Easy chair, the frame of which is a geometric interweaving of welded steel rods. The motif is developed in the upholstery decor: in one of the variants of the model, the pattern on the fabric consists of knots and metal chains.

The designer also tried himself in the role of a traditional artisan. Indian inspired cultural tradition during his large-scale journey across various countries, he creates a collection of hand-polished copper vases and hammered copper lamps with a matte black finish.

Tom Dixon surprises with his new collection 2008: simple wooden furniture A Bit of Rough (A little rougher) made in best traditions British cabinetmakers This is expressed in a practical approach to the choice of materials, as well as thoroughness, honesty and reliability, unshakable in any fluctuations and bursts of fashion.

The Tom Dixon collection also includes lamps made from industrial materials such as cast steel, glass, enamel, etc. For example, the streamlined parts of the Mirror Ball are made of polycarbonate, widely used as vandal-proof glazing, and are securely mounted on a powerful metal frame . And Blow light became the first lamp adapted for compact fluorescent lamps.

Concluding our story, we cannot help but recall the definition of “vertebral designer”, coined in relation to Dixon by the flamboyant Italian Fabio Novembre. With this, Novembre noticed his friend’s special interest in the internal structure of an object, and not its outer shell. And Tom Dixon himself has said more than once that the main thing in all his research is production technology and the properties of materials, and only then the design of things as such. Therefore, when working with any material, Dixon first thoroughly masters traditional methods and techniques, and then brings something of his own into the manufacturing process - sometimes revolutionary new.

Tom Dixon, MBE since 2001, self-taught British designer, born May 21, 1959, in Sfax, Tunisia. At the age of 4, his parents moved him to the UK.

Tom is currently the creative director of the eponymous brand Tom Dixon, which specializes in the production of designer lighting, furniture and accessories. His work has been acquired by museums around the world, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Tom originally wanted to become a musician and studied bass guitar. Playing music professionally until the age of 23, he recorded an album in 1982 with the band Funkapolitan at Jimi Hendrix's studio in New York. Tom Dixon became involved in design quite by accident when he had a large number of free time while recovering from a motorcycle accident. He did not study anywhere specially, his “art school” was experiments with welding in an attempt to repair his motorcycle.

In the design world, Tom became known in the mid-1980s as “a talented, inexperienced designer who actively used welding in the production of his furniture.” Very quickly Tom became one of the most talked about avant-garde designers. Dixon created Studio Space as a space for creativity and experimentation for himself and other young designers. By the late 1980s, Dixon was working with Italian giant Cappellini, for whom he designed the iconic "S" chair.

In the 1990s, Tom Dixon's name became identified with his Jack, a polypropylene design product that "sits, stands, and glows" that he created within own company Eurolounge. In 1998, Tom was appointed head of the Habitat design studio, then served as creative director until 2008. Tom Dixon was the public face of the team responsible for rejuvenating the Habitat brand.

In 2002, Tom Dixon founded his own brand, Tom Dixon. The company is located in the Portobello area of ​​London. The company's range of designer lighting and furniture products are renowned for their innovative, contemporary designs.

In 2004, private Swedish investment company Proventus teamed up with Tom Dixon to create a holding company that would design and develop innovative design products.

The Tom Dixon brand is showcasing new collections of designer lighting and furniture at the Milan Biennale and the London Design Festival. The company's products have international status and are sold in 65 countries.

In 2007, Dixon launched Design Research Studio, which specializes in architectural and interior design. Among famous projects Tom's is a restaurant at the Royal Academy and Jamie Oliver's restaurant in London.

In 2004, Tom Dixon received an honorary doctorate from the University of Birmingham, and in 2007 he received doctorate University of the Arts London.

Tom Dixon's works adorn the interiors of Terence Conran, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Romeo Gigli, Ralph Lauren and Vivienne Westwood.

Famous English brand Tom Dixon was founded in 2002 by the equally famous British designer and architect Tom Dixon. Tom Dixon was born in 1959 in Sfax (Tunisia) and at the age of 4 he moved to England with his parents. Not yet thinking about a career in design, Tom studied at art school in Chelsea until he had an accident, due to which he had to spend 3 months in hospital. Having recovered, Tom quit his studies and became interested in music, becoming a bass guitarist in one of the bands. Soon, a new accident, in which Tom breaks his arm, closes his path to a career as a professional musician, and he devotes himself entirely to working on creating his metal objects. In 1985, Tom Dixon opened his workshop Creative Salvage, which in 1994 changed its name to Space. The workshop is engaged in the creation of furniture and lamps, producing items in a single copy or limited edition. Dixon begins to show his products in galleries in London, Paris, and in 1989 he enters the exhibition stage in Milan.
Soon Tom's sculptural works attracted the attention of amateurs and professionals, among whom was Giulio Cappellini. The meeting with Cappellini opened the way for Dixon to the world of professional design. In 1989, Cappellini began producing the S chair, which in the same year joined the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. During the '90s, Dixon's work became less craft-oriented and more sculptural in form, with the designer's interest drawn to plastics. In 1994, Dixon founded EUROLOUNGE to produce his own products. And the first product released by the company that had enormous success was the Jack Light, which received the Millennium Mark award in 1997 and soon joined the exhibitions of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco. In 1998, Tom Dixon headed the Habitat design studio, and in 2001 he was appointed its art director.
In parallel with his work in other studios, Tom Dixon founded his own brand in Portobello in 2002, producing furniture and lighting, which this moment sold in 65 countries around the world. In 2004, he was appointed art director of Artek, being also a co-owner of this large Finnish furniture manufacturer, founded by Alvar Aalto back in 1934. In 2007, Tom opened a design studio, Design Research Studio, which deals with interiors and various architectural projects. Among the completed works, it is worth noting the Royal Academy of Arts and Jamie Oliver restaurants in London, Sea Containers House and Shoreditch House. Dixon was awarded an OBE in 2001 and received the Best Retail Design award in 2007.