11 hours ago
Why Americans are obsessed with British interior designers
I n 1964 they called it the British Invasion. The Beatles crossed the Atlantic and captured a generation of American fans. Six decades on, a quieter conquest is underway. Sans screaming, fainting and knicker-throwing, British contemporary craft and design labels are taking the New York interiors scene by storm — despite the 10 per cent levy on most goods imported from the UK to the US. The crowd is going wild for this group, nicknamed the NyLon (New York/London) designers.
Among the rock stars of NYC x Design week last month were an unprecedented number of Brits. Russell Pinch threw open the doors to the Apartment, his ground-floor flat/showroom in a Greenwich Village brownstone. Pinch, whose studio specialises in understated artisanal furniture and lighting crafted in solid oak and walnut as well as more esoteric materials from abaca fibre to Jesmonite, arrived with an established transatlantic following. During a broadcast from John Legend's sitting room in 2020, fans spotted Pinch's Anders light and 'the phones went mad' with US inquiries. Five years on, the clamouring for his quiet aesthetic continues: every slot to view the Apartment was booked up as soon as the designer opened his appointment diary. At the moment about 45 per cent of Pinch's work finds its way across the Pond and, the designer says, appetite is increasing, with demand on both coasts and in affluent US design hotspots such as Dallas.
