Twentytwentyone to host the exclusive launch of Ben Huggin’s ‘Together Chair’ thanks to the support of brand new Design Patron Scheme

Spring 2010 will see the exclusive launch of Ben Huggins’ critically acclaimed ‘Together Chair’ at the prestigious twentytwentyone’s Upper Street store and Riverstreet showroom, thanks to the success of New British Design’s inaugural Design Patron Scheme.

The shop will launch an initial twenty one brightly coloured limited edition pieces – each chair a its own unique colour selected from the colour wheel – as a follow up to the twenty signed & stamped chairs distributed to the chairs original Design Patrons. The launch of the chair has been facilitated by a groundbreaking scheme introduced earlier this year at the London Design Festival which invited just twenty people to invest £250 each in the chair. In return for their investment, each patron receives one of the first production line pieces – a dated and numbered limited edition – before the product is launched on to the open market in March.

The scheme was devised by New British Design’s founding Director Ben Huggins after concerns that an increasing number of talented designers were being forced to abandon their creative ideas to pursue other careers due to a lack of funding or support.

“The prohibitive cost of tooling to transform a great idea in to a tangible product ready for the shop floor can prove insurmountable for a young designer’, explains Ben.

“By encouraging the public to invest relatively small sums in designs that inspire them we believe we have come up with a scheme where everybody wins – the designers get their designs realised, and the investor gets a limited edition potential design classic”, continues Ben.

Made from two pieces of heat-moulded laminated ply and finished in an ash veneered seat, with a selection of brightly-coloured lacquered backs to choose from, the Together Chair has been described as perfect blend of simplicity and flare and is tipped to become a design classic.

The Together Chair will be available to purchase from Twentytwentyone from March 2010.

New British Design would like to say a big thank you to everyone who came to our Preview evening at Together Design in Great Titchfield Street, and an even bigger thank you to Katja, Heidi and all the Together staff who hosted the event.

New products on show included ‘Annie get your coat’ – Junior, and the prototype models of the ‘Together’ chair. The launch of the Design Patron scheme was enthusiastically received, and the ‘Together chair’ is now well on its way to becoming commercial reality.

Thanks also to everyone who braved a very busy Brick Lane to visit New British Design at Tent London. ‘London’s premier design event’, once again lived up to expectation, with some excellent exhibits from Freshwest and Hiroshi Kawano amongst others.

A gruelling week of lugging around furniture and demonstrating the assembly of the ‘Little Star’ has already yielded some great results.

The Together chair won an Elle Decoration pick of the show award, and was once again very well received, with potential Design Patrons coming from as far afield as Shanghai!