Industrial Designer Marc Newson on His Love for Cabinets of Curiosities

This article is taken from the Autumn/Winter 2023 issue of AnOther Magazine:

“I was intrigued by the idea of the trunk as a kind of container – an icon or an iconographic piece. An object that holds things. Historically the trunk always had a specific function, whether that was to hold shoes, guns or whatever, in a specific way, and I wanted to turn that idea on its head. The Cabinet of Curiosities is a container for completely unspecific things, philosophically. I love the idea that you fill it with whatever you want – the trinkets that follow you around, of which I have many.

“I do collect things – everyone is a collector in a way, right? I love old sports cars – of course none of those would fit in the trunk. And I collect bits of meteor. But I also have a vitrine of old knives. Not knives for the sake of hunting, but pieces of steel – slightly impractical objects that I find beautiful. It’s a fairly pedestrian metal, but if you really get into it there are some truly exotic compositions. I once designed a steel katana, a Japanese sword, with Hokke Saburo Nobufusa, a ninth-generation sword-maker in Japan who is an official Living National Treasure. These swords are considered semi-holy objects. There are whole rituals around touching the blade – you need to wipe it with crushed bee’s-wing dust, because if you get a fingerprint on there the fingerprint etches for ever. It’s pretty serious.

“While I collect things, I’ve never been able to design a good way of storing them that also enhances them. It’s not just putting them away and hiding them – I like the idea of seeing them or knowing where they are. But then, conceptually, I also like the idea that everything can go to sleep.”

A trained silversmith, Marc Newson never studied design, and yet his industrial design talents have elevated almost every quotidian object imaginable. There’s his work with the Tokyo Toilet project, an initiative run by The Nippon Foundation to introduce ultra-high-spec public lavatories throughout the Japanese capital; the first Apple Watch; his curvy neoprene Embryo chair, which has been in production since its inception in 1988; Bunky, a Duplo-like bunk bed; and his cartoon-coloured, inflatable-looking dish rack, the Dish Doctor. Newson’s flair for organic, biomorphic shapes, pop colours and futuristic finishes is far-reaching. While he has collaborated with numerous luxury brands – including Montblanc, Hermès, Dom Pérignon and Ferrari – the designer feels that “luxury has become such a banal word”. It may, however, be applied to the pieces emerging from the Louis Vuitton atelier in Asnières, the leather-goods workshop near the leafy banks of the Seine just northwest of Paris, where he has watched his Cabinet of Curiosities slowly come to life. This LV-monogrammed trunk is filled with a Tetris-like maze of handmade compartments and cubby-holes that, in a choice of primary colours or the house’s classic toffee-hued Vivienne leather, combine the label’s savoir-faire with Newson’s easygoing minimalism and joyful aesthetic. 

Grooming: Roxy Attard at Future Rep using R+CO 

This story features in the Autumn/Winter 2023 issue of AnOther Magazine, which is on sale now. Order here.