Talk to anyone about design and the furniture industry in the UK and you’ll quickly come to realise that while the British Isles may be home to an enviable wealth of design talent. It ain’t home to that many producers of quality, contemporary furniture. Or at least anymore.

Whereas, for example, the early years of “British Design 1948-2012. Innovation in the Modern Age” at the V&A feature regular examples of British produced furniture, the later years are all but bereft of such.

Britain being, as Edward Barber so neatly put it, a post-industrial nation of estate agents and bankers.

There are however a few brave foot soldiers still fighting the good fight, such as London based SCP.

Founded in 1985 by Sheridan Coakley, SCP were the first company to commercially produce Japser Morrison’s work, and also gave a young Royal College of Art graduate who was working in Morrison’s London studio at that time his first contract. Konstantin Grcic.

In the course of the past quarter century SCP have not only gone on to co-operate with British design luminaries such as Tom Dixon or James Irvine, but have also built-up an impressive roster of young designers including Gareth Neal, Donna Wilson or Peter Marigold.

With their focus on what one could call “traditional crafts”, SCP are never going to be a company that push the limits of innovation. But much like Rui Alves, that’s not really their goal. Their goal is, as they themselves say,  “… [to] create functional and beautiful products that are built to last”

And that they do very well.

Consequently, as part of our small if wholly unscientific exploration of the current state of the British design, and for all British furniture design, industry we caught up with Sheridan Coakley at MOST Salone in Milan to hear his take on the current and future potential for contemporary furniture production in the UK.

(smow)blog: Walking round “British Design” at the V&A one finds very little furniture produced in the UK after the mid-1960s. Are you a dying breed?

Sheridan Coakley: We are breed that died! Furniture production in the UK died after the war and never really recovered. The industry was decimated by the war and those companies who survived did so because, like a lot of British industry, they thought the only way to compete is to produce things cheaply. Which is of course a fatal mistake, trying to compete with cheaper, Eastern producers. By the time people realised that was the wrong way to go, the only option left was to go niche. And so the survivors are those who have specialised. There’s still a few companies involved, for example, in contract office furniture, but in general I think furniture production in the UK has gone. Which is a real shame.

(smow)blog: You established SCP in 1985. Looking back over the years would you say it is getting easier or harder as a UK producer?

Sheridan Coakley: For us it’s getting easier, but that’s largely because of our experience. But also contemporary furniture is more the norm now in the UK, which certainly wasn’t the case when I started. Back then it was all sofas with pelmets and reproduction antiques; the professional classes bought antiques because they liked the idea of almost pretending they had inherited the furniture. It was the days warm beer and cricket. But it’s radically changed since then and nowadays contemporary furniture is much more widely accepted and bought.

(smow)blog: And looking forward….?

Sheridan Coakley: The design industry is very strong, always has been, and certainly as long as I’ve been involved it’s been British designers who’ve been at the forefront, so Jasper Morrison, Tom Dixon, Barber Osgerby, et al. But importantly there is, at last, an understanding in the Government that manufacturing is good. 10 years ago manufacturing was bad and we should all do something else. Now manufacturing is good. So maybe long term there is a glimmer of hope of it all picking up again. Look at Formula One, for example, which is totally dominated by British engineering and specialist manufacturing.

(smow)blog: And does that mean that you yourselves have no problems finding partners in the UK to produce your products. Or is that a problem?

Sheridan Coakley: We have our own upholstery business which when we took over had four employees and now has twenty. Getting wooden furniture made economically in the UK is quite difficult and and will remain so unless companies invest massively in new machinery. But generally in terms of other partners you’ve just got to go and look for it, we, for example we do a lot of textiles which are woven in Wales, our ceramics are made in Stoke-on-Trent. The companies with whom we work with are in a way the end of their industries; but a lot are also becoming powerful small business again. Largely because there is so little real competition.

There are certain things we will never be able to do; but where modern technology, specialist engineering or traditional crafts are involved, I see no major problems.

SCP at MOST Salone Milan 2012

Part of the new 2012 Donna Wilson collection for SCP an MOST Salone Milan

The Josiah pendant lights collection by Terence Woodgate for SCP at MOST Salone Milan 2012

During MOST Salone SCP presented a live upholstery display by their in-house upholstery team

We came, we saw, we sat on the floor…

But it needn’t have been so…..

Once again the Europeans show the Americans how it should  be done. One of the largest stands in New York was that from the Saloni Milano -a  mix of the finest Italian designers: And they brought their own press room. No electricity, no Internet…but tables. And coffee.  How fondly we look back on April….

Press Lounge at the Saloni Milano Stand: First Chair and First Table by Stefano Giovannoni

Although greatly impressed by the typewriter, we also liked Desk 51 by American producer bludot as a desk. Personally we wouldn’t use the pull out lower surface, as suggested,  for stowing a keyboard; much more the beauty for us is that you can “hide” piles of papers, notebooks and the like when the desk is not in use. And so give the impression at least that your desk isn’t cluttered.

Desk 51 and Real Good Chair from bludot

We don’t neccesserily need a large table… a small side table will do. For example the stable, yet practically height adjustable Tom Tom by Konstantin Grcic for SCP.

Tom Tom by Konstantin Grcic for SCP

Or the gorgeous Spot Table by Tom Dixon with its interchangeable height stems….

Spot Table by Tom Dixon

But what does all this help, we don’t have a table…and so nowhere to place the Foster Series desk accesories by Sir Norman Foster for Helit :(

Foster Series by Helit

In our entry on the designersblock showcase we mentioned a foldable cardboard chair that had caught our attention.
Now we know as well as everyone else that are our heads are readily turned by free beer and bagpipes (thanks Calum) – and if you throw in some dub and finest Italian ska and we would lie for you in court.
And so we thought we had better wait a day or two before saying anything more about Stuart Miller’s fine folding cardboard chair. In case we found something better. We thought we had last night, but no…

Stuart is a student at Glasgow Caledonian University, and the chair is part of his final year project. And as yet unnamed.

As your smow(blog) team were impoverished, over-worked and under-nourished students at Glasgow Strathclyde University, regardless of much stick we took from the oinks at Glasgow University we could at least take solace in the fact that the Glasgow Tech students were even lower down the social scale than us.

That hasn’t changed, but Glasgow Tech became Glasgow Caledonian University and the industrial design department has also grown up. And there were genuinely a few good works from the Glasgow students on show in Milan, but the pick was Stuart’s chair.

It is comfortable. It is stable. It looks good.

But the important factors are the ease with which it folds flat and its lightness.

Stuart brought two chairs with him in a budget airline – and we all know how strict they are; on account of the weight we once had trouble checking a club sandwich in as hold baggage…

They are light.

And fold flat.

And as such perfect for either keeping in a cupboard in case extra guests turn up unannounced; for putting in the car if your heading-off somewhere and planning camping or stopping for a picnic; or if your flying off to a holiday cottage in the sun and don’t fancy sitting on a cheap plastic chair.

Theoretically you could even strap them to the back of your bike…

The range of uses is almost unlimited – for example, as seating while decorating a room – yet the stability and comfort remains.

And as you can see from the video – they take seconds to assemble.

As we said earlier: “Took a problem, analysed it, solved it. And that with style and comfort. Lovely.”

In terms of the “extra seating market” the folding chair was, until now, the unquestioned king, queen, prince and illicit son idling in exile and planning his bloody revenge …

Until now…

A foldable chair made from a recycled cardboard is a real alternative. And not only because of the space and weight savings – aesthetics are also important.

And so if Moormann, Lampert or SCP are reading…

(P.S. Sorry, we weren’t thinking when we made the film, hence the sideways image :( And sadly here in Milan we have neither the software nor the RAM to change that, but once we’re back in Leipzig…)