SCP Classics Collection
30 years after its launch, the London-based company invites designers to tweak their original works
Since it launched in 1985, design company and retailer SCP has produced some of the most iconic pieces in British design. Now, 30 years later, the company is celebrating its heritage with the launch of the SCP Classics collection, set to debut at London’s Clerkenwell Design Week in May. Founder Sheridan Coakley—who introduced designers Matthew Hilton and Jasper Morrison, among many others, to the UK market—told CH about the idea behind the new line and how they decided on the products. “People were still asking us about certain pieces, but the main reason why we chose the ones we did is that they are just as relevant today as when they were released. We could have included many more, but edited it down to what I think is an eclectic spread,” he says.
The result is a 14-piece collection that features works by Hilton and Morrison, as well as Konstantin Gric, Rachel Whiteread, Terence Woodgate, Michael Marriott and James Irvine. The designers were given the option to make changes to their original creations, offering them what must have been an unmissable opportunity to revisit old designs.
“Nobody really made any radical changes—Morrison did some small modifications, but a casual observer wouldn’t notice them. His bar stool in the collection (originally created in 1986) is somewhere in between the original one that he made himself, and the one that we made at SCP in the ’90s,” Coakley says. “It was more about giving the designers the opportunity to take a new look at the pieces. Whiteread’s daybed (originally released as part of the Please Touch exhibition at SCP in 1999, a show of furniture pieces by contemporary artists) has been made in a different color, simply because its fabric is only made in Bute Tiree textiles and they had dropped a number of colors.”
Underlining just how many well-known designs SCP have released over the years, Coakley mentions one that was left out of the Classics collection: Matthew Hilton’s “Balzac” armchair, which is special to Coakley because it was the first upholstered piece from SCP. The reason it’s not in the Classics collection: it’s still in production.
Images courtesy of SCP
