Furniture brand SP01’s Co-founder and Creative Director Matt Lorrain was recently in Singapore to present the new indoor collection by designer Tim Rundle at Space Furniture and give the Asian market a preview of Tom Fereday’s new outdoor collection. 

Matt Lorrain

We caught up with Lorraine and asked him to share more.

Update me on SP01. You’re on your third – almost fourth – year in the business. How has the brand evolved?

We’ve simplified the message of the brand to ‘conceived in Australia, made in Italy’ because it is what we are, an Australian brand producing high-quality furniture in Italy.

The brand is still about crossing over the indoor and outdoor realm and softer commercial environments, bringing the lounge from hospitality and residential sectors to the commercial realm. We try to exist in this intersection. 

How does SP01 keep its collections cohesive?

We’ve developed a family of details that we work with and expand upon. You’ll see small things, like for example, this pinched bars detail at the base of the Jeanette chair, which was from the first series by Tom Fereday. 

The New Jeanette Collection by Tom Fereday

You can see it on Caristo as well, which is designed by Tim Rundle. We use these details to develop a single design language so that the pieces relate to each other even though they’re designed by different people. 

Caristo by Tim Rundle

So a specific detail is not exclusive to its original designer?

It was a bit controversial at first, but the way we work with the designers – Metrica, Tom and  Tim – has been pretty collaborative and since the brand is still young, we need to make sure that it has a clear direction. And so far it’s been working for us.

What are some of the new details in Tim’s new indoor collection and Tom’s new outdoor collection?

We’re bringing back the highback to create that enclosed feeling in both collection, as you can see with Caristo and the new Jeanette lounge chairs. 

We’ve also introduce terracotta to the outdoor material palette with the Jeanette coffee tables.

Jeanette Coffee Tables

Terracotta has been around since the ’90s and we thought it was a good time to bring it back what do you know – it’s one of the big thing in Milan this year. It’s like the material just resurfaced to our collective consciousness. 

Jeanette Coffee Tables

We’ve also done a new edit on the fabric collection, which was such a massive undertaking. As our network expands, we get to know more mills and we work directly with them for the fabrics. The outdoor fabrics used to be flat and monocolour but today we’ve introduced more colours and textures. 

Caristo Dining Chair in new fabric

What’s next for SP01?

We’re working on a collection with an Australian designer who is based in Denmark. I can’t say who yet [laughs] but I’m sure you can guess with a little bit of Googling! We’re also interested in collaborating with Asian designers.

There have been meetings and in our office we have this huge board with notes and images on that inform how the brand should move forward. Everybody gets to vote. It’s a democracy so we’ll see. It’s going to be exciting. 

In Singapore, SP01 is available from Space Furniture.