Chelsea Jihong Park

Dan Howarth: Do you think the fashion and furniture collaborations are working?

Jasper Morrison: They probably are but in a different way. I don't think Missoni Home at the moment is going to sell many chairs to McDonalds in a contract plan, it's rather residential.

Funnily enough it's for a market that most of the traditional domestic market companies have almost abandoned because there's so, so little of it now. The main market for furniture companies these days is a contract one, much more than the rest of them.

Dan Howarth: Why has that shift occurred?

Jasper Morrison: Economics. Many people have social change, they prefer to travel than stay at home so if they have to choose between an expensive sofa and a holiday they'll go on holiday.

Dan Howarth: They're paying for experiences rather than objects?

Jasper Morrison: They go on five holidays instead of buying one sofa.

Dan Howarth: It depends where you buy your sofa from.

Jasper Morrison: Yes, true. They buy their sofa from somewhere nasty and have four holidays.

Dan Howarth: What do you mean by nasty?

Jasper Morrison: By nasty I mean something beginning with I. The lower orders, let's say. The company that won't last.

Dan Howarth: You don't think?

Jasper Morrison: Well, not very long.

Dan Howarth: For what reason?

Jasper Morrison: Well you get what you pay for. If you pay €400 for a sofa or whatever they cost, €200 maybe, it's not going to be that well made.

Dan Howarth: Are people going to realise it's better to buy quality furniture than cheap furniture over and over again?

Jasper Morrison: If you can yeah, I mean obviously it's not easy when you don't have a lot of money to buy an expensive one or one that might be more durable.

Dan Howarth: It's a problem for people of my generation because now they spend so much on rent that furniture has to come as a side. It just has to perform it's function for as long as it can.

Jasper Morrison: Well there you are, you explained what happened to the domestic market. That was never the case before, people used to set up home. Of course not everybody looked towards the Italian design companies but enough of them did for there to be a market.

Dan Howarth: Is there going to be a shift back in that direction?

Jasper Morrison: There could be, one day. If the economic climate changes but I don't think it'll be very soon.

Dan Howarth: Do you have any predictions for how the market for designers might change in the future?

Jasper Morrison: The good thing has been that while the domestic market went down, the contract market went up, especially those leisure, holiday-type hotels, restaurants, that kind of thing. Those kind of projects have been booming, so that's why all the traditional domestic companies have redirected what they do.

Dan Howarth: Have you had to change the way you design to accommodate that?

Jasper Morrison: I think in a way I was lucky because I was always in between, I liked the language of products that could work in both contract context and in the home. So I've done quite well out of it, it's been easy to adapt.

Dan Howarth: Do you think that companies like Ikea and big mass-production furniture companies are making it more difficult for designers to work?