American vision meets British craft in Billy Cotton’s new collaboration with Soane Britain

Soane Britain is one of those interior design brands that carries with it a certain kind of if-you-know-you-know notoriety. That squiggly rattan console in an effortlessly chic hotel lobby? That fern-patterned wallpaper in the powder room? Most definitely Soane.

American designer Billy Cotton has long been a fan. Over the years he’s worked directly with the company, which prides itself on hand-making everything in the UK, on custom pieces for his interior projects. ‘We couldn't source anything else quite like it in terms of quality,’ the designer, who's worked with everyone from Cindy Sherman to Ralph Lauren, tells us.

One day over lunch in New York, Soane founder Lulu Lytle posed a question: why not collaborate together on a collection of lighting, fabrics and furniture? ‘I was blown away,’ Cotton says. ‘It’s very rare to have a company be able to support this.’

So Cotton and his team got to work, understanding the company’s ethos and skills. Lytle founded the company (whose namesake is 18th-century architect Sir John Soane) in 1997 with the aim of creating beautiful home furnishings with the best craftspeople in Britain. Today, Soane partners with 37 workshops, which encompass upholstering, glass-blowing, furniture-making and rattan weaving. ‘We learned an enormous amount about the company,’ Cotton says.

The designer wanted to create a new offering that merged seamlessly with Soane’s capabilities and existing products, but also felt fresh. The resulting assortment, which includes 23 fabric and wallpaper designs and 21 pieces of furniture and lighting, references art deco glamour with a decidedly nautical feel. ‘I've always loved old British things,’ Cotton says. ‘‘With Soane, it’s hard to place the time in which these pieces come from. We wanted to keep that going.’

Star pieces include the handsome oak ‘Collins’ table, whose top is encircled with a leather band fastened in place with gleaming brass rivets, with a matching cabinet. Leather also wraps a wall sconce and trims a lamp shade. Of course, there are rattan pieces as well, like the ‘Aquinnah’ lounge and dining chairs (so named for the Martha’s Vineyard town in which Cotton summered as a child), which are woven from a pale rattan with modern black metal frames. ‘Rattan, leather, metal – there’s a sort of alchemy to these materials,’ Cotton says.

For the patterned fabrics and wallcoverings – a first for Cotton – the designer dug through his own collection of antique textiles for inspiration. One particular pattern, ‘Tack Stitch’, even took Cotton to Bavaria to negotiate a licence agreement with a heritage textile maker.

The most gratifying moments came when Cotton could collaborate with artisans and push the technical boundaries of materials. He references the ‘Polymer’ lighting series by far the most modern pieces in the collection, consisting of a tubular brass body inspired by naval telescopes. ‘Soane was really game, even though it involved an enormous amount of engineering,’ Cotton says.

‘There's nobody else in the world that could do that,’ he adds.

soane.co.uk