100 Design Icons from Heals

Earlier this year the British furniture store Heals arranged a survey of 2000 people asking them to name their favourite design icons from the last 100 years. Icon is an over-used word and one I try to avoid if possible but Heals, which has always championed British design, sells a huge range of instantly recognisable classics including Eames, Anglepoise and Arne Jacobsen so, I think, in this case, I will make an exception to my rule and allow this word to appear.

Now, you might think that with all those designer names on the list and available to buy from the store, that the winner would be one of the aforementioned big names. But no. The Eames lounge chair came second. The Anglepoise third and the famous Egg chair came in fourth.

Also on the list was the Noguchi coffee table and a vintage Ambrose Heal tallboy which was designed in 1902 as well as the Dodie Wardrobe. Dodie Smith, the author of 101 Dalmations was buyer at Heals for many years (she was also rumoured to have been Ambrose Heal’s mistress). The wardrobe was designed for her as part of a bedroom suite and is now part of the V&A’s furniture collection.

But none of those were the winner. Neither was the classic butterfly chair designed by Lucian Ercolani for that great British firm Ercol, nor the Arco light by Achille Castiglioni – famously faked by Samantha Cameron when she was in No 10 and later responsible for kickstarting a campaign to extend the copyright laws by Elle Decoration.

The list includes the famous Unniko print designed by Maija Isola for Marmekko. Isola was specifically told by her boss and the company’s founder, Armi Ratia, that they were to come up with modern designs and there were to be no flowers. This poppy print, first produced in 1964 is now the most recognisable of all their work. You would also recognise the LC4 chaise longue by Le Corbusier, who collaborated with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret as well as Charlotte Perriand, who worked in his studio.

No-one would be surprised at the presence of Robin Day’s chair 675 (which is the chair of choice in the boardroom of the Victoria & Albert museum by the way) nor the Picardie glasses by Duralex – familiar to every British schoolchild – and the Ghost armchair by Philippe Starck for Kartell.

On we go, past chairs by Wegner, more by Jacobsen and not forgetting the famous Isokon Penguin Donkey by Egon Riss. It would be odd not to see the Barcelona chair by Mies van de Rohe and the Alvar Aalto stool for Artek and both are there.

But this is a British list. Voted for by British people. And so the winning piece must be quintessentially British. And this is at once so surprising in a list of this nature and so perfectly typical of this nation that perhaps it won’t surprise you to know that the winner was, in fact, a kitchen table.

The cooks table has turned farmhouse legs, three drawers on either side and a marble top. It is reminiscent of those Victorian kitchen tables from grand country houses and is so perfectly British as the icon of choice. When confronted with so many classic pieces from the last 100 years only the British would vote overwhelmingly for the humble kitchen table.

Would you?

You can see the full list of the Heals 100 here. And if you’re in west London today do drop by the Queensway branch of Heals where I will be fulfilling a lifelong ambition to dress a store window with some of these British pieces. I will be showing you the window and my designs on the blog next week too.