Tom Dixon

1959 Sfax



Tom Dixon was born in 1959 in Sfax, Tunesia, in 1959 but lived in Great Britain from the age of four. Tom Dixon studied bis 1978 at the Chelsea School of Art in London until 1978. In 1983 Tom Dixon began his career as a designer with on-stage performances at Titanic, a London nightclub, during which he welded metal to make seat furniture. That was how the 1987 Tom Dixon "Kitchen Chair", made of frying pans and ladles, came into being. In 1988 Tom Dixon designed the "S Chair", which again was deliberately conceived as a piece of seat furniture that was not intended for mass production.
In 1987 Tom Dixon established his own factory, Dixon PID, later called Space, to make these early furniture designs and lighting, either as one-offs or in limited editions. Since the 1990s, Tom Dixon's designs have been less crafts-orientated; some of the earlier pieces have even been adapted to mass production. Both the "Kitchen Chair" and the "S Chair" as well as the "Bird" chaise longue and the "Bird 2" chair have been made by Cappellini since 1992. The 1989 Tom Dixon "Pylon Chair", consisting of thin, short steel rods welded together, was still being made by Cappellini completely by hand.
In 1997 Tom Dixon designed the "Star" lamp to be made of polypropylene, which, along with the "Octo" and "Jack" lamps were made by Eurolounge, his own firm. The "Octo" and "Jack" lamps can either be used separately or, when stacked up and intertwined, make wall lighting. In 1998 Tom Dixon became head of the design division at Habitat.
In 2002 "Tom Dixon. The Company" was established. Famous for his utterly innovative designs, Tom Dixon is regarded as a star in the design firmament. In 2002 Tom Dixon designed the "Fresh Fat" series of chairs, vessels, and a side table of plastic cords knotted and interwoven to look like glass. In 2003 Tom Dixon experimented with tableware: "Eco Ware" is made of a biodegradable material that is 85 % bamboo fiber. The year 2005 saw the launch of "Copper Shade" and "Mirror Ball", an extremely elegant series of lamps made of mirrored plastic.
Tom Dixon works as a product designer and an interior decorator both for his own firms and for Asplund, Cappellini, De Vecchi, Driade, Inflate, Moroso, Salviati, Swarovski, Terence Conran, and the fashion designers Jean Paul Gaultier, Romeo Gigli, Ralph Lauren, and Vivienne Westwood.