Russell Pinch

Jun 4

Russell and Oona Pinch run the highly regarded furniture and lighting design company Pinch Design.

At Some Good Ideas we admire and covet their designs in equal measure. One of our founders, Charlie, spends much of each day working at one of Pinch’s desks and sitting on one of their perfect chairs.

Here we speak to Russell about the importance of made in Britain, great cutlery and Brixham crab.

First, tell us a bit about yourself and what your job is.

I’m lucky, I love my job. I’m a furniture designer working from our studio in south London and our shops on the Pimlico Road. My wife Oona and I run our business together. She is essentially the Managing Director, but we share a lot of jobs. My job is predominantly to make sure that we have designs and product to sell.

Working with a brilliant team, I design furniture and lighting from an initial sketch all the way through to prototyping, production, marketing and shop display. This is the dream for a furniture designer, especially one who's a control freak.

We started our business in 2004, designing and making furniture and lighting that we would want to live with. Our ambitions haven’t changed over the last 17 years; we indulge ourselves in the detail and don't compromise on the materials and quality. Our pieces are characterised by a quiet and elegant aesthetic, we work tirelessly to refine the designs with an intense dedication to craft and process.

What things do you make that are British?

We make about 85% of our pieces in the UK and the rest in the EU. We work with seven key workshops with a variety of skills, from a lighting workshop in Brighton to cabinet makers in Dorset and Essex and upholsterers in Norfolk as well as wood turners and fine art fabricators in Gloucestershire.

Each of these has a speciality and I see it as part of my job to design products that make their skills shine.

Is Made in Britain an important part of your marketing and brand message?

When it's appropriate we do ‘message’ this, as it is important. As consumers we connect with where things come from, but we have to be very careful not to overplay our hand as we are not making exclusively in the UK. It is important to me as I am passionate about keeping craft skills alive in this country and wherever we can make here we do, thankfully there are still a lot of really skilled workshops operating, but they are few and far between and of course the next generation is an issue.

Also, there are some typologies that are better produced abroad, because these countries have passed down the skills and protected the industries in the way the UK hasn't. I also see and understand the world economy is now so integrated that it would be very hard to say a piece was entirely made in the UK. The glues, the oils, the hinges etc are often made elsewhere and not available as British made anymore. What is important is to concentrate on the skills we have in this country and work to preserve them now. Our job is to make sure we play to our strengths and that we design with UK workshops in mind, designing pieces where you can see the craftsmanship and detail and the makers’ hand, and read their commitment.

Do you find that your customers understand why British goods cost more than many others?

(Do you need to explain this, or do they understand it when they come to you?)

On the whole yes, I think our customers do understand if they take a moment to think about the supply chain and about human versus machine making. It very much depends on the piece; people often have a preconceived expectation of what something should cost and sometimes a price needs explanation by us.

Where it's clear a person has made a piece -for example, our Nim tables are hand cast and painted- this is very obvious but sometimes people do not really think through provenance on the everyday items though that trend is changing.

A lot of our customers are motivated by quality assurance and if we deliver on our serious commitment to using sustainable, well-sourced materials and poetic design that is intended to be inherited, then our customers are happy to pay for it.

Do you feel that there’s a growth in interest in this type of provenance?

Yes, we are getting there, there's much more awareness of where and how things are made nowadays, but still by exception rather than the norm. Our UK customers are reassured that pieces are not having to travel far to get to them, and many see their purchase as an investment in British craft heritage and a way of making a positive choice.

What British goods do you use every day?

David Mellor cutlery.

What British-made goods would you most like to own/do you have your eye on?

A Rush Matters large rug for our house in Devon. It’s chic but welly friendly. And always a Margaret Howell coat, if indeed they are made in the UK.