Faye Toogood

Faye Toogood has emerged as one of the most prominent women in contemporary design. A true multidisciplinary artist with a background in art history, she works across a diverse range of disciplines, from sculpture to furniture and fashion. “Whether you are a fashion designer, a furniture designer, or an interior designer, the materials you can get your hands on are essential,” she says.

 

Born in the UK in 1977, Faye Toogood graduated with a BA in the History of Art from Bristol University in 1998. A long-standing editor at the cult magazine World of Interiors, she established Studio Toogood in 2008. Her career is defined by the ‘Assemblages’ collections, each of which creates a cohesive world of interconnected ideas, forms, and materials.

 

An admirer of minimalist sculpture, British Modernists, and Italian designers from the 1950s to the 1970s, Toogood explores the relationships between simple forms to create objects. She often reinterprets and reinvents classical tropes and references from art history by introducing a new aesthetic. Since the creation of her iconic Roly-Poly chair in 2014, she has been considered among the leading form-makers of the 21st century.

 

Her work has joined the permanent collections of major institutions worldwide, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Corning Museum of Glass in New York, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, and the Fabergé Museum in St. Petersburg. 

 

Designed for Galerie BSL, the ‘Caged Elements’ collection features a coffee table, a floor lamp, and a throne-like seat. In this series, Faye Toogood's signature aesthetic—rooted in clean, primary forms—takes center stage, highlighted by the interplay of colors and the juxtaposition of authentic materials such as English walnut, steel mesh, and hard stones from Great Britain and Italy. Fundamental shapes like the square, sphere, and cylinder serve as the building blocks of her vocabulary, combining effortlessly into geometric compositions that balance conceptual minimalism with functionality. Her work is imbued with a dynamic tension—between solid and void, positive and negative, masculine and feminine—that embodies a sophisticated vision defined by restraint and elegance.