![Lee Broom: a storyteller, a grand narrator.](/content/dam/images/g/v/5/g/u/w/image.related.afrArticleLead.620x350.gurscx.png/1492991871486.jpg)
In this magazine 18 months ago, I declared 2015 the year of British designer Lee Broom. The reason being, of all the industrial designers trying to riff off the 1980s Memphis vibe, his cleverly off-kilter Drunken side tables and lamps were the most astute interpretations of a trend, one which is still reverberating in the Millennial mindset today. His swinging sixties-style Hanging Hoop and standard Hoop chairs of the same year merely confirmed Broom as an adroit thinker and master craftsman.
But it turns out I called it too soon. As the 41-year-old Londoner celebrated his 10 years in the design business at the Milan Furniture Fair in April, it became clear that 2017 is truly the year of Lee Broom.
In Milan, he set up his showroom in the cavernous underground vaults of the Mussolini-era Central Station, filling them with his personal best-of picks from a decade in the trade. Each one was reproduced in pristine white and available in editions of 10.
His Drunken side table was rendered in white Corian, its oblique base sparkling chrome. His Crescent pendant lights were now all-white, the slipped discs of their disparate orbs highlighted in very pale gold. His Decanter lights used cut-crystal carafes sourced from flea markets, antique stalls, even eBay, reimagined with opaque bulbs. He created a statuesque Carrara marble grandfather clock especially for the occasion.
![Lee Broom's Decanter lights.](/content/dam/images/g/v/p/d/a/x/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1492738490579.jpg)
Child actor
"I think of Milan as a stage, and I like to conceive my presentations as performances," says Broom. This attraction to theatricality is no accident. He was a child actor, and at 16 was recruited into the Royal Shakespeare Company. At 17 he won a fashion design competition and landed a job working for that great British eccentric, Vivienne Westwood. Gradually, he began consulting to a number of groovy East End bars on their interior design and by 2007 was ready to launch Lee Broom the brand.
What I loved in 2015, and love even more now, is Broom's unabashed delight in glamour. The guy simply doesn't do dour. He refers to his various designs as silhouettes, conceives a collection like a fashion show. The Guardian has said of him, "Lee Broom is to furniture what Marc Jacobs or Tom Ford are to fashion". That's not to say vacuous. Broom is a savvy stylist, with a refined eye for shape, colour and line.
His collection of urns and vases for Wedgwood, released earlier this year, are at once homage to the ceramic maker's iconic late-18th-century Panther vase and a bow to bold post-modernist ideals. The graphic black and white lines of the bodies contrast perfectly with the pert coloured balls Broom uses as stands or stems. The panther profile of the original is transmuted into angular arms and copper coloured balls. Delicious.
"I've always been inspired in my work by some sort of historical reference," he says. "Particularly at the beginning of my career it was about the decorative. Now my work is more about the sculptural nature of the pieces, looking at the silhouette. Also, I've become more conscious of materiality, of exploring unusual materials or using materials in an unusual way."
![Lee Broom's Electric Louis chair.](/content/dam/images/g/v/p/d/0/c/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1492738060870.jpg)
He creates Carrara marble plinths to support his On The Rocks cocktail glasses; uses richly veined marble as light sheaths; transforms carpets into chaise longues; cuts crystal into light bulbs. Broom thinks like a fashion designer, attentive to seasonality, alert to even the most subtle shifts in taste.
Storyteller
"Working with Vivienne, I learnt that every season you present new looks, new silhouettes, but you must have an overarching house style. For me it seems very natural to change my vision each season and experiment as much as I can. It helps me develop as a designer, to evolve."
Like Tom Ford or Marc Jacobs, Broom conceives of each presentation as a theatrical happening. He's created a fake department store, shown his work in a florist shop, installed a trompe l'oeil palazzo in the back of a truck he's driven around Milan.
![Drunken side table by Lee Broom.](/content/dam/images/g/v/p/d/1/g/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1492737956012.jpg)
But at no point do the theatrics override the product, and therein lies his skill. He's a storyteller, a grand narrator, and his products are the characters driving the storyline. Each year, we wait patiently for the sequel.