From Inspiration To Reality: MADE’s Emerging Talent Award
- Words
- Rosie Flanagan
The Emerging Talent Award by MADE.com is an annual initiative designed to spotlight up and coming furniture and homeware designers — the winner then having their piece produced and sold by MADE.
The 2017 brief asked that submitters use a material that inspired them, “Your design could be made of your chosen material, or, it could be the material’s appearance, history or manufacture that influence your design.” The team at MADE give the example of the revolutionary creation of plywood by Immanuel Nobel — and its use by Charles and Ray Eames in their pioneering of mass-produced, affordable furniture — in the outline. With such open parameters, the number and types of design objects presented to the panel were overwhelming. From the hundreds of submissions, a panel of experts shortlisted six products that were then put to public vote. Amongst them were Emily Roger’s simple ceramic forms, Benoit Kellal’s fold-down wine rack, an elaborate room divider by Samir Skalli, Lee Walsh’s ‘Flex’, and a lamp from Charlotte Petitpierre. Thousands of people had their say, and the results have been tallied — the winner of the 2017 Emerging Talent Award is Charlotte Petitpierre with her table lamp, ‘Hiraki.’
'Hiraki' by Charlotte Petitpierre
Of Petitpierre’s winning entry, MADE’s Design Director Ruth Wasserman said, “the judges were impressed by the maturity of the design, and we could see it fitting in perfectly to the existing MADE catalog.” From an LED ring akin to a luminous halo, the lamp can be angled using its two vertical arms.
A selection from the runners-up
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‘Oru’ by Emily Rogers
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‘Divide’ by Samir Skalli
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‘Flex’ by Lee Walsh
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‘UU’ by Benoit Kellal
All images © MADE.com