I got started in the furniture business because I needed to earn a living. When I left school, I had this idea that I’d be a photographer, so I started buying old photographs at auction and selling them from a friend’s book stall. I also bought furniture that was being sold cheaply – it seemed silly not to when there were things going for £1. The real bargains were 20th-century tubular steel pieces – no one was interested in that stuff in the early 1980s. I had them re-chromed – there was no market for vintage-looking furniture then – and launched my first collection, Pel. It then occurred to me that if I was making things look new, I may as well start manufacturing my own pieces.
I opened the shop on Curtain Road [in Shoreditch, London] in 1985. The concept was simple: to produce new, modernist designs under our own label, and try to sell them.
I launched with a collection of furniture by Philippe Starck. It was the first time his designs had been shown in the UK – no one here had heard of him – but I’d seen his interior for the legendary Cafe Costes in Paris, and thought we shared many of the same sensibilities.
Priscilla Carluccio, Terence Conran’s sister, bought some Pel furniture for The Conran Shop, where she worked. She was incredibly supportive of my amateurish business. If there’s one person I have to thank for my success, it’s her.
Matthew Hilton and Jasper Morrison were the first designers I worked with. Both were just starting out, designing tubular steel furniture, and I had the contacts to get their pieces made. Jasper’s 1986 chrome-plated Side Table was the first piece SCP produced – we’ve just reissued it as part of our Classics collection.
When we opened, my only clients were architects and people in the media. Everyone else in the UK wanted Georgian antiques. I spent every Saturday sitting in the shop with barely a soul coming in. Anyone who did visit left the taxi running outside – Curtain Road was pretty rough back then. We were able to keep going only because of the export business: Europe and the US were big markets.
The turning point came in 1993, when The Conran Shop bought Matthew Hilton’s Balzac armchair. It had been slow to take off (we didn’t sell one for two years), but once it did, that was it. We’ve now made over 5,000, making it SCP’s most successful piece.
We were ahead of the curve in producing our pieces locally. It’s convenient – there’s no sense in shipping upholstery all over the world when we have the skills here – and I’ve never had the ambition to work on a huge scale. I bought the upholstery factory we used in Norfolk when the owners retired.
I have worked with a lot of great designers over the past 30 years: Terence Woodgate, Konstantin Grcic, Donna Wilson, PearsonLloyd, to name just a few. There’s no secret to finding them; I just look for designers whose work I like, who share a simple, modern aesthetic, and who I can get on with.
Design is in a really healthy state. Companies are realising that they can’t afford to mass manufacture, so they’re happy to work with young designers producing small runs. SCP was in the vanguard of that, and it’s still what we do.
I like seeing people buy things. We have two London stores now, at Curtain Road and Westbourne Grove, but anyone can open a shop. SCP is really about the products we make, stuff that looks good and functions well. That’s always been our goal.
My advice to anyone thinking of investing in a piece of furniture is: buy something useful, that you want to live with. With furniture, as opposed to the grey area of design art, you get what you pay for in terms of quality of materials and manufacture; spend as much as you can afford, but always buy what you like. Eventually, if you do need to part with it, somebody else will be happy to take it on. Good design lasts.
Coakley’s five favourite pieces
1 Motley ottoman by Donna Wilson for SCP, 2007 (£2,730)
Donna’s first piece for us was a turning point for SCP, marking the start of working with a new generation of designers.
2 Sprue candelabra by Fort Standard for SCP, 2012 (£530)
This piece, our first with Brooklyn design duo Fort Standard, is cast in a foundry in Woolwich that we have worked with for 30 years.
3 Balzac armchair by Matthew Hilton for SCP, 1991 (£2,960, including ottoman)
The brief to Matthew was to design a modern club chair, comfortable and timeless. It’s our most successful piece.
4 Mono tables by Konstantin Grcic for SCP, 1995 (£260 each)
We first made these in 1995 and have just reissued them as part of our SCP Classics collection.
5 Oscar sofa by Matthew Hilton, 2009 (£3,768)
Currently our most popular sofa.
• The Design Museum in London is marking SCP’s 30 years with an exhibition, Arrangement Of Furniture In A Museum, until 6 June.
