Are you familiar with the furniture of Bethan Gray? I had the pleasure of seeing her designs at the last trade fair I visited. Her on-trend palette of muted pastels combined with pretty detailing offers something so individual and unique. Her pieces use raw materials such as marble, leather, and wood with a finish that is soft and elegant. Her Stud collection has hand-stitched leather which is water and stain-resistant and is available in 9 colourways.
A bit about Bethan:
Bethan Gray, an award winning Welsh designer, has an extraordinary background. Her family hails from an ancient Rajasthani clan that over centuries migrated across Arabia and Persia before settling in the Celtic heartland of Wales. It’s a heritage that weaves a rich pattern of influences and inspirations, which draw on craft traditions of both East and West. Bethan’s signature style reveals a love of detail, tactile textures, and luxurious materials such as semi-precious stones, marble, wood, and hand-tooled leather. Intricate patterns of light and dark, texture, purity of line, clarity, harmony and a connoisseur’s eye for detail define her highly original style. Her skill in combining cutting edge design technology with a deep knowledge of the values of traditional craftsmanship resonates across cultures.
Her travels in India, Asia, the Middle East, Northern Africa, and South America were fuelled by her love for and curiosity about their arts. Her London home is a treasure trove of objects brought back and lovingly displayed—sources of inspiration and pleasure. In her years as a designer she has worked closely with craftspeople from all over the world, developing her eye for the rare and wonderful. Her sense of pattern, colour and form are at the heart of everything she designs. The elegance and harmony of her work, created through a combination of cutting edge design technology and a deep knowledge of traditional craftsmanship, gives it a timeless quality that transcends trend. Following her graduation from De Montfort, with a degree in Three Dimensional Design, Bethan was discovered by Tom Dixon in 1998 when he awarded her the prestigious New Designers Prize.
This led to a role at Habitat, where she became Design Director, giving her a unique insight into global retail. She left to establish her own eponymous studio in 2008, to broaden her client base and work with the luxury materials that she was so passionate about.Given Bethan’s warm and inclusive personality, collaboration is at the core of her practice. She designs best-selling collections and high-profile pieces for global retailers and brands, and her exquisite Private Collections can be seen in some of the world’s most prestigious stores, including Lane Crawford, Liberty and Harrods. She is featured extensively in the media and has exhibited in London, Milan, Paris and New York. Her work was recently recognised with the prestigious award of ‘Best British Designer’ in 2013/14.
