Tom Dixon

Ecologically conscious design

How to make plastic cups which are biodegradable? This is the sort of problem which Tom Dixon relishes. The Tom Dixon bowls have become a design classic.

Tom is a self-educated maverick whose only qualification is a one-day course in plastic bumper repair. Not bad for someone who made it to Creative Director of Habitat!

Born in Sfax, Tunisia in 1959, to a French/Latvian mother and an English father, Tom moved to England aged four and spent his school years in London. Attending Chelsea Art School for a brief six-month period, a motorbike accident curtailed any artistic ambition and left him in hospital for three months.

He spent two more years in the burgeoning London night club and warehouse party scene. This nocturnal lifestyle left plenty of time in the day to start experimenting with welded structures, which is how he first made a name on the London design scene.

For the past 20 years Tom has been at the forefront of furniture design. His S chair has a permanent place in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and in 2000 he was awarded an OBE for his services to British design. There is no manufacturer of plastic picnicware quite like Tom Dixon.