The Origins of the Weft Collection: A Contemporary Take on a Humble Classic

I’ve always been drawn to understanding where different furniture forms come from, not just how they’re made, but why they came into use in the first place.

My natural leaning is toward honest, humble, utilitarian pieces: furniture that serves, built with intention rather than ornament.

It was this curiosity that led me back to one of the simplest forms of all: the shelf.

Much of my inspiration comes from time spent at the Weald & Downland Living Museum in the heart of the South Downs. A return to origins, it’s a place where rural life from centuries past is preserved through the seasons, and where you can step into buildings from a time when the furniture we now take for granted was just beginning to take shape.

Many of the historic houses there are built with wattle and daub, and later lath and plaster walls, structures whose texture and construction reveal the hand of the maker. There’s a subtle beauty in their honesty, and it was this character that sparked the idea for the Weft collection.

The Weft Collection reimagines a familiar, steadfast form: the shelf. The aim was not to reinvent it, but to reveal its original simplicity, its usefulness, its modesty, and its role in everyday life.

Each piece is crafted with traditional joinery, an emphasis on proportion, and a belief that furniture should complement a space rather than compete with it. The result is work that feels both contemporary and rooted in heritage.

The defining feature of the collection is the hand-woven back, a detail that gives Weft its name, borrowed from the language of traditional fabric weaving.

Each back is woven by hand in the workshop using slender laths we prepare ourselves. As the laths curve gently across one another, they create texture, depth, and a subtle play of shadow. Throughout the day the light shifts across the surface, revealing new tones within the wood and giving each piece a unique presence.

It’s a technique grounded in traditional making, but expressed with a contemporary clarity.

Every Weft shelf, cupboard and panel is made start to finish by a single maker in our West Sussex workshop. This one-at-a-time approach not only ensures integrity, but allows us to offer bespoke variations. If you’d like a piece made to measure, or an adaptation to suit your home, you are very welcome to get in touch.

A lesser-known origin story also underpins the collection. The word cupboard is believed to come from the Middle Ages, when a simple board, or bord, was used for storing and displaying cups. A cup-bord: a cup on a board.

Over time that simple plank evolved into more elaborate, decorated furniture, moving further away from its humble beginnings.

The Weft cupboards echo that early purity. They return to an idea of furniture as straightforward, functional and honest, celebrating the warmth of wood, the clarity of craft, and the beauty found in the retained forms.

Above all, the Weft Collection is about creating a gentle, practical backdrop for the things that matter most.

A shelf may be a modest thing, but it becomes the keeper of small stories: everyday objects, ceramics, books, handed-down pieces, ephemera gathered over time.

In reinterpreting the humble shelf, I hope to make space for these stories, to offer furniture that feels rooted, calm and characterful in the home.