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LUXUO examines how a generation of international artisans — shaped by cultural awareness and digital fatigue — is driving the resurgence of handcrafted furniture and décor over mass-produced pieces in the global interiors market. Often balancing the needs of ageing parents and young families, today’s homeowners approach furniture with a combination of desire and discernment — favouring pieces that endure and develop character over time.
Craft is no longer solely a decorative luxury, but a value system rooted in human skill and material integrity. Handcrafted furniture — designed to be maintained and repaired — reflects a contemporary appreciation for sustainability and the visible hand of the maker, offering emotional and functional value in equal measure.
Ariake: Japanese Craft Reinvented For Global Interiors
Ariake — founded in Morodomi, Saga Prefecture, Japan — is a collaborative craft endeavour involving highly skilled companies and worldwide designers. Each piece — from lattice benches to paperwood tables — combines traditional Japanese carpentry techniques, natural materials such as cedar and hinoki and modern design concepts. The brand’s attitude emphasises living and social rituals, with products designed for meeting areas rather than just decoration.
Its furniture has been exhibited abroad as part of a larger narrative reintroducing handmade Japanese craft to a discerning global audience. Stocked at Grafunkt, Ariake’s combination of extensive material expertise and cross-cultural design dynamism places it at the forefront of interiors that honour tradition while looking forward.
Molly Mahon: Hand Block-Printed Wallpapers & Textiles
Molly Mahon — a British printmaker — interprets heritage craft through a personal viewpoint, creating rustic yet sophisticated wallpapers and fabrics. Her block prints — inspired by the Ashdown Forest’s flora — combine centuries-old techniques with a colourful, modern palette. Mahon’s studio reintroduces hand-carving and printing techniques in ways that appeal to luxury interiors through pattern and texture.
Her work — distributed by luxury design companies such as Schumacher — has expanded beyond niche craft to influence how producers combine local inspiration with worldwide distribution, appealing to designers seeking authenticity and texture in interior finishes.
Hors-Studio: Recycled Materials Turned Into Design Objects
Rebecca Fezard and Elodie Michaud manage the French design atelier Hors-Studio — which tackles material innovation through low-tech craft by repurposing industrial waste into furniture and interior components. Their characteristic “Leatherstone” — formed from discarded leather compacted into stone-like slabs — appears in tables and sculptural items that convey both sustainability and luxury.
“Leatherstone” furniture pieces from the Tuf collection. Image: Florent Tanet.
The studio also uses natural fibres such as mussel byssus in textile installations. Their practice — which was recognised with the 2025 Liliane Bettencourt Prize for Manual Intelligence — challenges the limits between raw material, craft method and interior application.
Singapore’s Proud Modern Craftsmen
Craft X Design 2.0 — a project of Singapore’s National Heritage Board (NHB) — brings together contemporary designer Nathan Yong and traditional craftspeople such as rattan maker Chen Foo Kee, wood-carving Francis Tan and embroidery artisan Heath Yeo to reinterpret old crafts for modern surroundings.
The result is a rattan vanity, wood-carved vases and embroidered lighting that combine labour-intensive processes with modern design sensibility. This public-facing project demonstrates how heritage crafts can be recontextualised for premium interiors, attracting collectors and designers seeking pieces with cultural significance and contemporary relevance.
Vikram Goyal: Brass-Centric Sculptural Furniture
Vikram Goyal — an Indian designer — is rethinking brass as a structural element for furniture and interiors. His creations — which are frequently consoles, chandeliers and screens — use repoussé and deep metalworking techniques to achieve scale and presence.
Goyal’s work reinterprets old metal craft through a modern lens, resulting in pieces that feel rooted in technique but fresh in form. For the premium interior customer, his work bridges the gap between rich metal surfaces and attentive craft execution, presenting brass as an expressive material rather than a decorative afterthought.
Let’s Pause: Spanish Craft Furniture Built On Slowness, Natural Materials And Human Hands
Let’s Pause is a Barcelona-based Spanish furniture brand that sees design as a dialogue with nature and craftsmanship. It uses organic materials such as esparto grass, fique, palm fronds and poplar wood to create handcrafted furniture, lighting and accessories that do not require chemical treatments or varnishes. Artisans — sometimes formed in cooperatives — work with the brand’s designs, conserving traditional skills and valuing tedious, painstaking procedures. Let’s Pause creates limited, numbered series as needed and provides unique pieces for residential or contract settings. Each piece is designed to return to the earth at the end of its life, emphasising sustainability, material honesty and appreciation for the makers’ time and abilities.
Alexander Lamont: Precious Materials, Global Artisans And The Making of Heirloom Furniture
Alexander Lamont is a furniture and interior design studio specialising in meticulous craftsmanship and uncommon materials. Since opening his Bangkok workshops in 2000, Lamont has brought together over 100 artisans versed in ancient techniques ranging from straw marquetry and natural lacquer to parchment, gilded leaf and hand-patinated bronze.
Each piece is created in collaboration between the designer and the craftsperson, with valuable natural materials chosen for their inherent virtues and durability. Skilled craftsmen from Asia and Europe complete complex operations by hand — resulting in minimal waste and an impeccable finish. Lamont’s work falls somewhere between beautiful art and utility, resulting in heirloom furniture that develops character with time.
Zanat: Bosnian Hand-carved Furniture With Global Design Collaborations
Zanat — founded on a century-old woodcarving heritage and reintroduced in 2015 — has emerged as a leader in contemporary artisan furniture. Based in Konjic, Bosnia, the brand preserves heritage skills by training a new generation of carvers and incorporating current design relationships with internationally renowned designers such as Naoto Fukasawa and Monica Förster.
Its hand-carved sculptures span from sculptural tables to interior furnishings, combining extensive craftsmanship with globally relevant aesthetics. Stocked at Xtra, Zanat’s decade-long journey has resulted in UNESCO certification for its craft and a dedicated cultural platform in Sarajevo — cementing its position as a global model for how heritage and contemporary design can coexist.
Crafting Desire
Craft has evolved from a niche luxury to a symbol of thoughtful living in the interiors market. Handcrafted furniture provides more than just aesthetics to the sandwich generation and beyond; it represents durability, expertise and ethical purpose. Each work is a value statement that connects producers and owners with time, materials and care. In an age of speed and digital saturation, this newfound emphasis on craft represents a cultural reset, in which the objects one surrounds themselves with are chosen with intention, respect and long-term relevance.
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