Posted by Sally

ML: When did you start Citizen Citizen?

PW: We started in 2003. Sweetu (co-founder) came up with the business plan. He had just moved from the East End of London. He transplanted himself into Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He was wandering around and realized there was a very similar design community in Brooklyn as there was in the very East End of London. The way people were living. The adoption of the industrial landscape.

ML: Did you and Sweetu know the designers originally?

PW: I didn't. Sweetu had met them at a trade faire. He was just very impressed with their work. So we did our first show during ICFF in 2004. We brought over Patrik Fredrikson and Ian Stallad and set up our gallery in Brooklyn to show their work. And I think it really stood out. I think the quality, the process of making it, the design language, really, really stood out amongst the other designers at ICFF. Also, we were very far away from ICFF. We were in the boondocks of Brooklyn behind a metal and brick facade that you would have just walked past. And then you walk into this stunning, beautiful art gallery.



Brush #1, Patrik Fredrikson

ML: I liked it a lot. I don't think it needs to be fancy on the outside. The way you present the showroom doesn't necessarily have to be the equivalent, aesthetically, of the product. Actually, I prefer them to be a little more underground. Like the Comme des Garcons popup shops.

PW: And I think the reason it occurred in Brooklyn in that way is because it was familiar, that's the British sensibility. Very underground. The punk aesthetic.

ML: When you guys first started did you have an intention, or were you just presenting an idea to the design community?

PW: Yeah, you know, we like this, etc.



Only in prototype!

ML: How did people perceive it at first? Did you get a good response?

PW: We had an amazing response from our community within Brooklyn and a tremendous amount of press interest immediately. I think people were intrigued by how we were doing it as opposed to what we were doing. We were so hidden in Brooklyn. It wasn't really exclusive at all, or luxurious.

ML: The collection isn't conventional because you fuse all these really strange materials together. Was that why you were originally attracted to Patrick and Ian’s work?

PW: No, it wasn't overtly spoken about. But we definitely understood that it's an important part of growing, with anything. Growing as a human being, growing in a relationship, growing as a business, you take stock of where you are and realize what beauty is and what beauty isn't. The idea of bringing British design to America. Once we started to look at the work we were presenting we realized that actually what we were very much interested in a usage of materials. We were looking at objects and realizing that their value is not about which nation's states produced them, but what was in the object. And it suddenly became very clear to us that that was the nature of Citizen Citizen.

Jimmy St. James

ML: You wanted to present this bridge between two different places and show that you can get kind of a similar idea, but you only started off with British designers. Then you signed Tobias Wong, of Brooklyn. Was that something you were originally trying to do?

Rubber dipped chandelier, Tobias Wong

PW: No. Tobi's someone whose work I first came across when I moved to America. And to be honest, it was the work that most excited me. When people asked me what I thought of American design, who I thought was interesting, Tobias was the only one who stood out. His work had inspired mine. The way he looks at the world and expresses that view. Citizen Citizen came to the realization that it wasn't about British design, German design, Italian design, or American design. We were interested in an idea. Conceptual based work, which is executed to such a degree, to transcend into a useful thing. And that was a great relief to realize that. Realizing that we didn't just have to sell British design. We could just curate, and bring to the market what we thought was just beautiful, conceptual based design. I think it's also very interesting that we're not having the argument about the difference between the art world and the design world. We’re just walking away and doing what we thought was very interesting. Whether it's art or design. Whether it's a limited edition pieces for $10,000, $20,000 or a mass produced item that's $28 or $60. It's quite confusing to a lot of people who want to define whether it's art or design. Tobias is a trained artist, so it's hard for people to label his work.

ML: What you're saying is it's not up to Citizen Citizen to put a label on it, it's up to the person who's choosing to view it. And I think that's great. I think traditionally people have a tendency to put too much emphasis on what it means, as opposed to whether or not it's good. They're focusing too much on the trend. Which is what I like about you guys, you don't do that. It's up to the consumer to make the choice.

PW: There's been a tremendous trend of pushing the brand of designed goods. I mean, that's something that's very difficult for us to avoid. It's just a question of whether or not we put that at the top of our list or not.

ML: So what's the plan for the future of Citizen Citizen? Or are you just going with the flow?

PW: As far as a business plan goes the work we're producing and the range of what we're producing now is primarily being constructed with US manufacturing. We'll be opening a showroom in San Francisco, a slightly off-the-map gallery space, we're going to be doing big things at ICFF, and then later in the year we'll open another showroom in New York, and then London. It's tough to say because we're already shipping product to Japan, Sweden, etc. We just want to present the work to a broader audience. And the web presence. We're very interested in that. The easiest space we've got. It's not like we need to open up a shop when we're selling so much off our web store. It's a very fun website.