Interview

The idea of a bunch of friends from art school getting together to start a furniture-design business doesn’t sound like much of a radical venture. But when Established & Sons set up shop in London in 2005, it had onesurprisingly simple—and, even more surprisingly, revolutionary—objective in mind: to promote the work of British designers in Britain. This meant curating a collection of high-end design objects devised, produced, and sold all in the mother country. One of the four patriotic entrepreneurs behind Established was Alasdhair Willis, who was no stranger to being part of a design zeitgeist. Along with editor Tyler Brûlé, he founded the style tome Wallpaper magazine that went on to typify the slick, seductive décor of late-’90s urban living. Willis served as publisher of Wallpaper until 2002, married designer Stella McCartney in the following year, and then set off to popularize British design by building it from the ground up. If, by founding Established, Willis’s interest was reviving some of the wit and experimentation in British design, he and his colleagues did so not by pushing a single overarching style. Rather, the team pushed a broad range of designers and approaches—consider a fast futurist statement by Zaha Hadid next to a pure minimalist cube by Jasper Morrison—which turned Established into something of a union for radical creativity (membership based on talent). Since 2005, Established has extended its reach even further: They opened a gallery in the West End, which shows its limited-edition pieces, while the East End headquarters still contains a showroom for the more mass-produced items. Established has also dropped its British accent—or, at least, let designers from other parts of the globe do some talking as well. These include collaborations with Maarten Baas, Jaime Hayón, and Roy McMakin. Established isn’t just selling exciting merchandise—it’s investing, researching, and collaborating with these designers at every step, making it something of a movement that isn’t defined so much by a specific look as by a specific interest in keeping the art of objects alive.

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SUZANNE SLESIN: So tell me how you moved from being a publisher to a furniture entrepreneur?

ALASDHAIR WILLIS: Well, I never had any strict career path. I didn’t have some vision in college that I would one day run a furniture-design business. As with most things in life, it comes down to various circumstances. I founded my education on paintings and the arts, and when I left college, I practiced as an artist for a period before succumbing to the inevitable need to earn some cash and I went into magazines.

SLESIN: It wasn’t just any magazine.

WILLIS: No, it wasn’t. I actually started in a number of publications. I helped get a U.K. literary magazine called the Modern Review off the ground. From there I went to do Wallpaper, which was extremely significant in my life because it was a big success, but it allowed me to use my creative side. As the publisher, I also had to develop my acumen for business. We never ran it as a sort of church-and-state operation. I was very often involved in the creative, the same way the editor would be involved with the business. It nurtured that sort of fluidity, while obviously building up my interest in and love for design. It was during that period that I saw the opportunity to create a design-and-furniture company in the U.K. that was going to be committed to supporting British-based designers. A lot of the designers I had met while at the magazine had their products made by overseas companies, and they felt like the only people who recognized their work were overseas.