Hypebeast Visits: Charlotte Kingsnorth is Crafting Characters from Furniture

For London-based designer Charlotte Kingsnorth, a creative career was always on the cards. Born to photographer parents, she was once given the advice from her father to stay away from the corporate grind, and to instead focus on making a career out of her passion by working for herself.

Taking note, and having decided that her path would be furniture design, Kingsnorth headed to London’s Royal College of Art – eventually graduating from the school’s Design Products masters programme in 2012. Since, she has become known for her distinctly anthropomorphic works that blend handcrafted processes with found objects.

“I pick old chairs that I’m drawn to and that I see a character in, and then I build my own character,” she says in an interview from her South East London studio, for the latest episode of Hypebeast Visits. “I really like the merging of an inanimate object and the person, and how the two combined makes the whole thing come alive.”

In terms of process – Kingsnorth tends to begin by going on a salvaging spree to pick up disused furniture and objects, before giving them a bit of TLC in her studio until they’re brought back to life. Then, she begins to apply her own vision through applying and shaping foam across its structure – “working with the upholstery, I feel like a surgeon and that [the fabric] was body matter”, she adds. The resulting aesthetic has earned her a stellar reputation among brands, galleries and private collectors the world over – with her CV boasting an impressive roster of collaborators from Fendi to ASAP Rocky, and Christies to London’s Saatchi Gallery.

Her success story becomes particularly poignant when you consider the fact that being an independent designer in the UK right now is no easy feat. Grants are drying up while costs are soaring – making it a pretty inhospitable place for creatives of any shape or form to flourish. “We’ve had the pandemic, we’ve had Brexit, we’ve had a lot of people leaving. [The UK's design scene] is in a state of transition,” Kingsnorth says, while acknowledging the elitism brought about by a lack of funding. “I do think that London produces a lot of raw talent, because – in a weird way – it’s really difficult, and if you’re going to do it, you really have to push yourself.”

Watch the full video above to hear more about Kingsnorth’s process, and for more from the Hypebeast Visits series, check out videos with Carpet Company and Heron Preston.