MILAN — The world is full of designers infusing soul and art into creations for the home… if only consumers had access to their stories. CB2, the design-forward sister brand of Crate & Barrel, has brought 20 of them together in one curated bunch, to make it easier for a wider audience to shop the products of a diverse array of talents. Thursday, CB2 formally introduced the Designer Collective, the partners behind the brand’s highly curated selection of core designs.
“We’re proud of each design partner because of their unique point of view which is a key tenet to how CB2 sees its place in the market. We carefully chose our partners in the space because they share an appreciation for inspired and quality design,” CB2 president Ryan Turf told WWD.
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Spanning the world from Barcelona, Spain, to Melbourne, Australia, the roster of designers within the collective include Evan Jerry, founder of Studio Anansi and designer and artist behind CB2 cult favorites like the T Marble side table and the Marisa Burl wood desk (Jerry is also the curator of CB2’s Black in Design Collective); Ross Cassidy, the Los Angeles-based South African master of luxe minimalism; Glenn Lawson and Grant Fenning of Lawson-Fenning also from Los Angeles; Brooklyn-based Caleb Zipperer; Chicago-based Kara Mann, a designer known for her edgy, subversive and even Goth designs; Silvana Azzi Heras of House of Heras, the Sydney-based designer behind CB2’s Allure Copper Floral hand-knotted wool area rug and New York’s father and sons Aguirre Studio are among the roster of names.
“CB2’s openness and excitement in pushing the envelope to align the luxury design world that I come from with mass-market design has been the key to balancing slow design principles with mass market demands,” Mann told WWD.
Turf said that the collective is a way to share its network with a wider public and bringing the stories of each designer to light allows the brand to create more meaningful collections.
More than 2,500 exclusive products from the 2024 Designer Collective showcase are available exclusively on CB2’s website.
In terms of pricing, CB2 works within a budget that keeps it accessible to a broad audience. Within the collection, Turf explained, there are, for example, hand-printed linens for just under $8, a delicately scalloped and honed porcelain table lamp for $250, a hand-sculpted sandstone sculpture for $650, a beautifully lacquered FSC-certified credenza for $1,500, a mixed Saint Laurent marble and cast aluminum table at $3,000 and a hand-stained Moore & Giles leather sofa for $3,500.