Rattan Moments and Historical Inspiration

From the Source

From the Source goes live every other Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. ET from the AD PRO Instagram account to share the new products that are catching the attention of AD market editor Madeline O’Malley and AD PRO associate editor Mel Studach. Our next live session will be January 13. Watch last week’s episode featuring all 10 picks, view the resource guide, and find an edited recap of our conversation below.

Madeline O'Malley: Let's jump right into it! My first pick this week comes from Soane. I’m always so inspired by their new offerings and their Rattan Ribbon Bench is no exception. The team at Soane used new techniques in their Leicestershire workshop to create this seamless fluid joinery. I think this is the perfect mix of traditional and modern.

Mel Studach: Francis Merrill (an AD100 newcomer!) also comes to mind as loving a good wave moment as well. I also can’t say enough wonderful things about Rattan, the book, which was written by Soane’s founder Lulu Lytle with a foreward by AD’s own Mitch Owens, and I love how it demonstrates versatility of the material. A great gift idea for the season no doubt!

Maddie: Totally! And couldn’t you totally see someone like a Beata Heuman using this bench in a project?

Mel: Absolutely! Ok, onto the next one for this week. It comes from designer Eny Lee Parker, who was recently featured in AD as an Artist to Watch. Her Queens-based studio for its ceramic lighting and furniture, but she’s stepping into a new medium with her latest launch, the Domino rug, which was designed in collaboration with print designer Spencer Malinski. The pattern draws inspiration from historical Domino papers, which were originally block-printed or stencil designs meant to be liners in drawers, but as beautiful as they were, clever creatives began pasting them to the wall.

Maddie: I love a good historical call-out! Let's talk about the next pick, which comes from one of our AD100 designers, Martin Brudzinski, who has partnered yet again with Urban Electric Co. for a new lighting collection. This piece—the Leasowe pendant—is Urban Electric Co.’s first foray into porcelain. They worked with an old Italian porcelain house called Mangani to create a stylish, scalloped, seashell- like dish. The matte finish (rather than polished) makes it more modern and less precious. I’m sure we'll see many more porcelain lights to come from Urban Electric Co.

Mel: I hope you're right. My next pick this week comes from our friends at Fabricut... Continue to the full episode here.