Kate Brewer, founder of Look Like Love, profiles a different new designer every week. With the tagline “support, nurture, promote” echoing confessions of a design geek’s own “discover, champion and inspire” and a similar commitment to advocating for emerging talent, the parallels between Look Like Love and confessions of a design geek are clear. Watch out for her features every Thursday afternoon. This week’s designers? The hands-on partnership Forest+Found.
Having delved into the world of emerging designers for a number of years now, it feels like there are two main lines of thought when it comes to design and craft. To embrace the trends, processes and technologies that are pushing techniques and aesthetics and finishes forward, or to take craft back to a time when working with your hands was the only means available. Both have their appeal in today’s market, with many designers channeling both elements to create a body of work. One partnership that has firmly turned its back on 21st century techniques is Forest+Found.
Set up by fine art graduates Max Bainbridge and Abigail Booth in 2014, their focus is on “a direct experience” using only hand tools to create their objects. As with all great partnerships, they play to their individual strengths and together have developed a collection of timber bowls, spoons and dishes, crafted by Max using walnut, oak and birch, and a series of quilts, cushions and throws in a soft, muted colour palette using locally-sourced natural dyes made from coffee grounds, oak tannins and iron, all hand-stitched by Abigail.
The emphasis is on material and process in their approach and each piece is lovingly crafted and carefully considered. “Every object has a direct relationship to the landscape and its architectural environment through the use of natural materials and considered design,” says the pair. “From sourcing wood and dye plants in the forest, to each mark of the hand on an object, we endeavour to tell a story.”
When I met Max and Abigail, their enthusiasm and passion was evident in the way they described their emerging business. But refreshingly, they are not eager to start selling their work to anyone who comes knocking. Their ambition is develop a commission-focused business. Having received high praise and much press early on in their careers, there were a number of interested parties eager to stock their work, but with the bespoke, one-off nature of the pieces, it wasn’t financially viable to start mass-production, and would have taken away the very essence of what they had set out to achieve.
So they are concentrating on small batches and one-of-a-kind items, sold through their own online shop, and showcased at events in and around the capital. Most recently at Clerkenwell Design Week and Craft Central’s bi-annual open studios, Made in Clerkenwell, they used the perfectly placed and proportioned Corner Shop on the edge of Clerkenwell Green to show the craft behind the work, followed up with a live demonstration at the William Morris Gallery last month.
Well balanced and harmonised in their intentions, Forest+Found are focused, driven and have a real passion and belief in creating beautiful pieces. By confidently sticking to their guns, Max and Abigail are proving that the success of the brand lies firmly in their hands.
Forest+Found are one of Look Like Love’s ‘One-to Watch’ designers, find out more here.
