SQUASH GAME

“I’m thinking of it as English folk meets Italian horsepower,” says Faye Toogood about her new collaboration with the esteemed furniture maker Poltrona Frau. The London-based designer is referring to Squash, a collection launched during Milan Design Week 2024, which includes an armchair, a side table, an ottoman, and three mirrors in different sizes, all upholstered in Poltrona Frau’s signature leather. But the collection’s standout piece is Squash, the armchair. The photogenic lounger combines Poltrona Frau’s unparalleled leatherworking craft with Toogood’s knack for comfort and eye for captivating shapes (her Roly Poly chair for Driade and Puffy armchair for Hem are already contemporary classics). “It’s like a pile of cushions,” suggests Toogood, although that description doesn’t do the Squash chair justice.

For however soft it may be, the chair’s racy proportions resemble a lounge chair on a private jet or the cushy upholstery in the back of a stretch limo. Indeed, the car analogy isn’t so far off, considering that Poltrona Frau makes all of the leather interiors for Ferrari and many other of the world’s most prestigious luxury automotive brands. Toogood’s mind must have gone there, too, since she first imagined the chair in red leather. “We made the initial forms in clay and canvas, and then we covered them in vivid red paint,” recalls Toogood. “During my trip to the factory, I discovered the first Poltrona armchair, designed in 1919 by Renzo Frau. It was done entirely in red leather,” remembers Toogood. “I also loved Frau’s iconic Vanity Fair from the 1930s in lipstick-red. It’s very refreshing to make a chair in such a strong, saturated shade.” As well as sportscar scarlet, the Squash chair is available in Toogood’s other favorite color, a tonal powder blue (pictured), which she describes as “influenced by traditional British folk art. It’s a shade you would find on classic painted wooden furniture.” Turns out, Italian raciness and English folksiness are not quite the opposites you might imagine. “We discovered a shared foundation with Faye Toogood, rooted in a profound appreciation for raw materials, sculptural forms, and impeccable craftsmanship,” says Nicola Coropulis, CEO of Poltrona Frau. “When I started showing them images of early English folk pieces, we found shapes that mirrored those in their archive in Italy. Shared forms from completely different cultures and contexts,” explains Toogood, who also runs an interior design studio and has her own homeware and clothing lines. “That’s what I love about design: it’s tactile and alive and connects us through history.”