Founded by interior designer (and former stockbroker) Sasha Young and launched in 2016, Wright & Smith is an exemplary online marketplace offering high-quality, artisan design and craft. No great shakes there – decent online design emporia are hardly a rarity in 2017 – but Wright & Smith’s USP is one of personification: aiming to engage its customers with the carefully picked selection of designer-makers.
They highlight the processes and remits of individuals – ceramicists, carpenters, furniture makers and textile artists among them – as well as the stories inherent in their works. By encouraging first-hand interaction between their roster of makers and their discerning public (occasionally, for bespoke projects, within their ateliers) Wright & Smith presents a curated collaboration across time and borders. Redoubtable stuff.
The platform has recently expanded, with a small – but impressive – series of new designer names. First, Humble Matter – aka, Long Island City’s John Born – creates timeless and oneiric ceramic pieces that draw inspiration from sources as diverse as Brancusi’s sculptures and Cycladic pottery. The creative world has, it appears, taken note; Born’s work was featured in a recent Fendi Casa campaign, bought to life by Milan design agency Studio Pepe. It’s a canny addition on Wright & Smith’s part.
Tea set, table and stools, all by Keren Zhang
Second, JBJ Interiors is a series of embroidered cushions and textile hangings, both pictorial and abstract, by Dutch designer Jackie Villevoye; itself a part of her wider Jupe by Jackie atelier, located in Uttar Pradesh, India, home to 120 master embroiderers. Finally, there's UK furniture maker Will Elworthy, whose small, perfectly formed selection of turned bowls, as well as his tanned leather and ash ‘Easy Chair’ represent a rustic benchmark for the platform.
As a contemporary design concept, Wright & Smith is quietly progressive – bringing a sense of intimate localism to an increasingly borderless market. Bravo to that.
A chair and table, both by Will Elworthy
Left, ’BH’ vase. Right, ’BAS’ vase, both by Humble Matter
INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Wright & Smith website
-
Highlights from the transporting Cruise 2026 showsThe Cruise 2026 season began yesterday with a Chanel show at Lake Como, heralding the start of a series of jet-setting, destination runway shows from fashion’s biggest houses
-
Behind the design of national pavilions in Venice: three studios to knowDesigning the British, Swiss and Mexican national pavilions at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 are three outstanding studios to know before you go
-
Premium patisserie Naya is Mayfair’s latest sweet spotHeritage meets opulence at Naya bakery in Mayfair, London. With interiors by India Hicks and Anna Goulandris, the patisserie looks good enough to eat
-
Sculptural ceramic lamps from Brooklyn’s In Common With and Danny Kaplan‘Terra’, a new collection of ceramic lamps featuring tactile glazes, puts Brooklyn studio In Common With and ceramicist Danny Kaplan in the spotlight
-
The Row collaborates on ceramic planters for your homePartnering with landscape designer Grace Fuller Marroquín, The Row launches a line of glazed planters intricately handcrafted in Mexico
-
Stripe tease: Paul Smith and 1882 Ltd offer up stacks of hidden depthThe two British brands unveil vases at Salone del Mobile
-
How Heath Ceramics sharpened up its act with its first new minimalist cutlery range -
David Rockwell designs a graphic and vibrant new tile range for Bisazza -
Super setting: Nobu Matsuhisa and Arita Plus create new tableware collection -
Vivid life: Hitomi Hosono’s ceramics animate a London showroomHitomi Hosono’s ceramics animate Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler’s London showroom
