It all started when I enrolled on a course studying Furniture Design a few years back. I was so keen to delve into a world of innovation and glamour and could easily picture myself as the next new designer with features devoted to me in magazines like Elle Decoration or Living Etc. Sadly, the reality was vastly different. I hated the course and what’s more was utterly useless at it. I could spend time blaming the folk behind the course or saying it wasn’t taught the right way round but the truth is, I was rubbish. Interestingly, though, it allowed me take a long hard look at who I was and, perhaps, where I wanted to go and I realised, I love old things; the quirkier and dirtier, the better. I loved sneaking glimpses(while holding my nose–animal glue is hideous) into the upholstery workshops and viewing a rather ugly 19th century chair being turned into a Marrimekko toting beauty. I loved the transformation, the contrast, the saving but also, and most importantly, the evolution.

That was three years ago and since then I have been upholstering, writing, teaching, facilitating art workshops for kids in schools and museums and pondering the heights of aesthetic sublimity to which I will aspire.

Dissemble Design is at the centre of that aesthetic. It is a place for me to flex my writing muscles while championing new design and paying homage to that which has already gone, so fabulously, before me. It is a place to meet, greet and muse and, most importantly, a place to document.

November 2013