The Thursday Show: Billy Cotton on his latest collaboration. Plus: The rise of the Togo sofa

27:44Like the appeal makes sense. I also think like aesthetically, there's maybe no other piece that could have like broken from that sort of like retail driven mid-century modern look that's been everywhere for so long. So like, I get it. I still don't, I don't know. I don't understand how this became the It Sofa. I don't know why everyone loves it so darn much. So let's give Michel Ducaroy, who designed the sofa for Ligne Rosé all the way back in 1973, let's give him his due. It wasn't wildly popular at first. There was some skepticism around it in the beginning. Others like you out there, Caitlin, who couldn't wrap their head around it.

28:29I read an interview with the great-great-grandson of the Ligne Rosé founder. and he said that at the time, people thought the company had forgotten to build a base for it or ran out of time to finish it before the show. Like that was the initial reception to this. And I will not lie. I read it and I was like, no, trust. I like my sofas to have legs too. You see, now, interestingly, you bring up, and we're going to bring this back to the conversation we were just having, the concern that many have. It's hard to get out of. Exactly. And imagine you're again, this person of a certain age or forget a certain age, you're just someone who has a hard time getting out of low sofas, as many designers wrote to me, is not a small concern.

29:12It sits low. You sort of sink into it a little bit. And it's not always so easy to get in and out of. So that was a concern. And it sounds like that was a concern from the very beginning, to your point. I was just thinking about, though, too, like the shape that your body takes to sit in this sofa is so solitary. And I actually wonder for people who have lived with this sofa, is it a social sofa? So often at High Point, we have conversations about how a piece lives, you know, in a group setting, how you can entertain with this piece. but I feel like the Togo is actually very designed to have you like slouch into it on your own and curve your spine so that you're looking at your phone.

30:00And I wonder if that is what makes it the perfect pandemic sofa. It's the perfect phone sofa. There you go. You're kind of like in this little like egg-shaped cup looking down at your phone. But could you lean forward to engage in a conversation? Can you, you know, like how does it move in a group? How does it support a social setting. I don't know. I have questions. Well, I mean, it's interesting because and many people had worked at a furniture store and had sold the Togo over the years before they became a designer or what have you. So they have all of those sentimental attachments to it. But and also lots of it sounded like people's first apartment or and the whole resale market for Togos is is massive.

30:45I mean, there's a massive auction market. There's a massive resale. I mean, interestingly, many people weighed in and said, no, no, no, wait a minute. The It's sofa is really, of course, the Mario Bellini Camdeleona sofa. And everybody all agree with that notion. Another sofa that's also low and also hard for some people to get out of. And so again, another consideration. But that is the one that many people, I was surprised how many people were willing to weigh in and say, no, no, no, I'm totally over that. And could I please stop seeing it? So, I mean, listen, it did get a lot of exposure. It is a darn good looking sofa, particularly when you build one of those really long ones, right?

31:28And you just run it across the wall. I like this one. It's a good looking piece. But I think, truthfully, people are going to get sick of anything that they see over and over again. And that is one of the challenges that so many designers have is that they say, oh, they used my favorite fabric. Now I feel like I can't use that anymore. And apparently the Togo and the Camila Dillon just sofa fell into that category that they just, they're just feeling perhaps overexposed. Their agents have been too good getting them bookings. And that's really the problem. But I'm so glad to hear your true feelings on all of this, Caitlin.

32:06You're kind to share and hopefully - I'm making so many friends on the internet today. Well, I think you are. I think you are. And it's great that you've got some new friends on Reddit. I can't wait to hear more about what they have to say. All right, that's it for the news, but there's plenty more to check out on businessofhome.com, including the latest industry new hires and Sean Lowe's advice on outsourcing procurement. We'll be back in a minute, but first, a quick break.

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33:18Coming soon to a design destination near you, iColtz is truly global. Now in 110 countries and expanding across the U.S. Shop European luxury furniture, lighting, accessories, and more. in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Atlanta, with Southern California and Las Vegas opening soon. Find a showroom or an authorized dealer at eicholtz.com slash stores. That's E-I-C-H-H-O-L-T-Z dot com slash stores. And now, back to the show.

33:59And we're back. I'm joined now by designer Billy Cotton. Billy, so glad to have you back on the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted. And there's been a lot of buzz about you lately. Billy, let's get to that first. We have many things to talk about. But first and foremost, a video that people have seen apparently 8.5 million times is this incredible Architectural Digest house tour of Lily Allen and David Harbour's home that was such a big project for you. And it's now suddenly back in the news in a big way. And you're mentioned in Lily Allen's latest album. Tell me how all of this showed up in your world and what you've made of it.

34:47I'm super proud of the work that we did together. It was a beautiful... a beautiful home and a beautiful moment. And we did, I think, something really special. And it's, you know, wild that it continues to resonate and be out there in the world. And, you know, I'm just, you know, as I said, I'm just really proud of that work. When the album came out, did you know beforehand that she was planning to sort of tell some of that story in the beginning? I had no, yeah, no. I mean, you know, I know them both well, but like I didn't, you know, I was sort of with everybody in the universe as this all happened.

35:29Well, and how did you hear about it at first? It was funny when the album dropped and then suddenly Billy Cotton gets sorted and the whole story of the townhouse. It's wild. I mean, my ride in general has been pretty wild. So it's just another amazing moment in the journey. Well, and you're right. You're right. Has been so wild. And but the project itself getting viewed on such a large scale, I was thinking about when you and I last spoke and early on in your career, there wasn't a way that people would have seen in such detail a video of your of your work. and 8.5 million people, many of whom sort of weighed in with comments, oh, I love this room.

36:18Oh my gosh, the carpeted bathroom or the swans or all of that. And I wonder what it was like for you seeing your work viewed on such a massive scale by such a wide audience. I think it was special because of what it was. I think that there were so many important vendors and craftspeople and all this stuff that were in that project. I had these collaborators that didn't do what everyone else did. And I was sort of interested. I thought, oh, this is not really what's sort of being consumed on a large level right now within the design world. Yes, it was a different scale of reaction and engagement about it, which I thought was so wonderful that people were engaging in a dialogue about design and whether they liked it or they didn't like it.

37:16And that they were seeing something that they potentially had not seen in that place before, like on a mass scale. And they were talking and seeing craftsmanship. Oh, yeah. You know, like, Sher Wagner and all these, you know, incredible vendors that are not, you know, that are not in spec houses and, you know, things that get more, maybe get more play in the zeitgeist. As designers, our portfolio and what we're known for is so often driven by the project that we did before, because that's what begets the next one. And so this was exciting in the way that I was able to work with Nubair and Pierre Frey in a way, these companies that I worked with a lot, but just, you know, in a different palette than we'd worked with in the past.

38:10The other thing that I'm curious about, so in the song lyrics of West End Girl, Lily Allen also talks about how it was feeling so expensive or it was more money than she thought she had or could spend. And it made me think about how I talked to so many designers lately who talked to me about the fact that things have gotten so expensive. A new build house is just so much more expensive than it was a few years ago. And everything along with it just seems to have really shot up in price and that it is causing some clients to pause or conversations to go on a little bit longer around the timing of projects.

38:59And I wonder, has that shown up in your world at all? or if it's something that's noticeable to you in a meaningful way. Yeah, I mean, of course. I mean, you saw, what was it? I mean, I'm not an economist, but my understanding is that in COVID, construction costs on average went up around 30%. And the issue is that the market kind of reset in a way. So all of a sudden sort of became a new benchmark of what certain things cost. And so then when you have this type of inflation on top of a baseline quality problem where we do not train skilled tradespeople in America in the same, we do not have this type of education and apprenticeship has moved into a very specialty category into what we would say is like a luxury thing, it has made the matrix of how we produce things of quality and how we sell things of great quality in a different way.

40:18It just has provided a greater challenge of how you think about designing because you do have to think about the cost per square foot and what that's going to mean and what that sample, you know, and how you're just not able to do it anymore, just purely from a cost standpoint. So also what is in this sort of dovetails into, you know, the conversation that we're going to have about CTK, but that was a lot of my the genesis also of making sure that we were super involved in the back end of what was behind the walls, because you're also dealing with an inflation of actual service costs. So having an understanding of what that is and making sure that you're communicating that with the client and going through that process and also level setting what the expectations of them, what their walls are going to be finished and the hard choices.

41:21you know whether you deem them hard choices or whether you literally are just saying it's just going to look a little different and we're gonna have to be more creative you know i think that that's now become part of our job as um designers is we just have to work with whatever reality we're working with you know and you can sort of fret over it and say oh my god this stuff has become more expensive we're just deal with the reality you know every project has a budget And that's part of our creativity. So you referenced CTK and the firm that you formed in part to have greater control over many of the aspects of these projects.

42:05Tell us what CTK is and what it's all about. CTK is an architecture firm, you know, and project management firm. And my two partners, Ilya Korolev and Yorg Tune. and Ilya and I had worked for many years together when we were the interior designers or you know had been hired to do that and we needed an architect and Ilya's sort of single person firm would work with us and our clients often and then I over the years had an architecture team within Billy Cotton that was drafting and doing things I trained as an industrial designer early in my career. Part of the reason I went into interior design was because of my interest in construction and my interest in not only how the curtains look, but how the walls, how you switched on the lights in a room, like all of the stuff that plays with the world of architecture.

43:08So it always had been sort of this collaborating with outside people, collaborating with Ilya, trying to build a team of people within our office who could straddle these different worlds. And Jörg and I had known each other for some years, and then he came into the fold, and me and him and Ilya said, look, this is really, this is something more. This is, you know, we have the chance to really build something special and be able to create a standalone company that can work in concert with Billy Cotton, but that also is going to be able to create architecture in its own right and in a dialogue between the three of us and our clients.

44:05So the two firms coexist and you're involved in both. And each firm might be working on separate projects, or are you always working? I mean, is Billy Cotton, the design firm, always brought in to a CTK project or not necessarily? Not necessarily. I mean, we work with many architecture firms that are not CTK. Many people bring us in just to do decoration, and I like to think that we're good collaborators with architects. And part of what CTK has also been able to provide is that we are better interior designers as well for those architecture firms that we're collaborating with because we're able to aid with drawings.

44:53You know, we're able to aid with the interior side of the drawing sets in a much more comprehensive way and just be a more informed and intelligent collaborator. But it's exciting. I mean, we're just every week seems to bring a different chapter or so. Well, so having had this other firm now for a while, is it something that you would recommend to peers, to colleagues? Would you say, hey, yeah, you should do this. You should bring an architectural firm into the mix. I mean, look, I don't, yeah, depends on your bandwidth for challenge. I mean, I think every, you know, I was, this is such a unique situation that I had this, you know, over a decade of working with Ilya, you know, alongside him working with me, him understanding me.

45:55same with your like that this is sort of like merger of these three things um and to create a you know to own to be at the helm of two companies is complex you know and and i don't know whether i'd recommend for those you know i don't have children so that's you know so if you have more commitments and a broader life that you need to have then yes maybe don't through that. Well, and as you referenced also, sandwiched within all of that is the Billy Cotton product side of the business. And there's always, I mean, there have been times where that was a huge part of what you were doing. And the design work, I get a sense, has taken a huge role in things.

46:50But tell me a little bit about what's going on on the product side and specifically Specifically, I'm interested to learn more about this collaboration with a good friend of the show, Lulu Little at Sown. And they're very excited about your collaboration. So tell me about that. No, it's been a dream. It's honestly like I really feel like I'm sort of – if I'm somebody who – if we use the metaphor of mountain climbing, you know, and I'm somebody who loves to climb mountains, um sewn and what she does and what she you know and what lulus does and has built as kind of the everest you know like it's really extraordinary the level of care and commitment to what to the earth and to design and to making of things yes as i said it's the core of how i started it's you know where i where i began and yes that was sort of always the thought that this was going to be what i did and the rest was kind of in effort of that um the universe has wanted different things for me and it wasn't for me to be you know wasn't for me to be solely making goods for the home that was part of my journey to ralph was to sort of you know i'm below my life and in product design and all of that um before i did that i had a company which we made things and jonathan pastier who is the lead industrial designer here um at my company he's really been my sort of you know in the same way that ilia and york are my partners and in the in the making of buildings jonathan is really my partner in the making of things and what we do together is so special he was with me at Ralph.

48:45He was with me for six years before that making things. And so when Lulu came to me and said, here's this idea, and both Jonathan and I just said, well, we cannot pass this opportunity to make things in this way because there really is a handful of companies that are making things at this level of quality and this level of craftsmanship. There's even a smaller group of companies that are doing them across category. And what I did think was exciting is I said, Lulu, you know, this is, I feel like, you know, you're making new things and you're designing new things and you're one of the few companies that are able to do this.

49:27And I really, I want you to be known as a design company, you know, not just a company that makes tools for decoration, but a company that is making innovative, new, you know, design and is able to dialogue with that other, with the more sort of traditional product design world that, you know, exists in Salon A and exists, you know, in the business of home of it all on some level, but like, you know, is also as kind of its own conversation happening outside of the world of the decorator. I'm curious, knowing all of the product design work that you've done in the past at a whole range of different price points, and obviously you've partnered with West Elm and others in the past.

50:22What is different in this kind of a collaboration where you just have such a wide range of craftsmanship and product available to you? you just don't have the same limitations you know it's just not and it's not even i mean and that's the way that lulu works is like there's not there's no limits you know there's no limits on your drink like when you are working for a more a company that is servicing millions of people and working on a retail level because lulu you know son is primarily for the trade um and so and it's made to order. So it's less of an inventory-based business, which has a completely different matrix.

51:10You're not dealing with merchants who have the same pressure of what it means for them to order, for us to design something and have the inventory and have their jobs on the line. If that inventory doesn't sell and there's a lot of data and science that's going into making sure that that collaboration is a success on a commercial level. And so, of course, we talked about that and we talked about the customer and we talked about, I always will ask that. I mean, I don't want to be the cause of detriment to anyone's business in my collaborations. And so we talked about what sold well and what people reacted to and things.

51:56But she really allowed for just a really open runway of what could happen from a design standpoint. Well, and as you were just describing, it's so interesting to come out with a collaboration that touches on so many different product categories. Here you are having fabric and wallpaper and lighting and there's leather and there's rattan. And I wonder for you thinking about the work that you're doing right now or how you're feeling creatively right now, what did this collection mean to you? How were you thinking about it? it sounds as if you had worked with Sone in the past, and that was part of why it felt natural to approach you about making product.

52:44But how, what does it tell us about what Billy Cotton is doing these days? Everything, you know, like it's everything, you know, like I, you know, maybe to my detriment, but I do not shy away from all of these different facets of the world of design and decoration you know and i i i love diving into a floral archive you know just as i like you know obsessing over designing a custom screw head like it's not the to me this is the the chaos and the beauty of my brain um but and and and what it allows when you look at the totality of the collection, you know, is that it allows for you to see into those different worlds of how we're able to think about color and textile and texture and all that stuff.

53:42And then how we're able to think about structure and form and function in a super way. And so it's like really being able to see it all. And one of the things that's, you know, it's very hard right now. In this world that we're in, there's a lot of stuff around like noise. We're just confronted with so much noise from media, from this new technological thing that we're all in. And the things that I've always wanted to make are actually relatively quiet, you know. And I knew where the world was going. I saw the world of art design mix and this kind of more craft-based design happening at a really high level, people that I admire greatly.

54:42But that was not who I was. I was not making things myself. I was not interested in that personally in terms of the design work. Like the stuff that I was drawing was much more simple and much more quiet. And that's a hard thing from a commercial standpoint, you know. It just purely is because of the way that we are right now. You know, unless you are in a big company, you know, unless it's like a utility company or something like this. and nobody would hire me to design a basic sofa. But Lulu, her customer, is because of the intimacy of the sales experience and because of the business that she built, it allowed for us to really create these things that you have to get close to them to understand.

55:41The lounge chair, a lot of people don't see, but the superstructure of that is all stitched leather. You know, they say, oh, it's a metal frame. I said, no, no, it's leather. Like she has literally the queen's ex, you know, saddler, like stitching these leather pieces. I mean, this is totally wild. And so I think that that is also what this sort of opens the portal to. And what you can sort of see is these details, you know. And this, I think a lot of people would laugh to think of me as quiet because I'm not really the quietest person in the world. But the things I like to design are, I don't know what that means.

56:25Well, there's a quiet, but there's also, to your point about the leather and the seat that you were just talking about, there's a great depth. And often you have to look closer. closer. You have to take a second look with your work to see the full depth of it. That's a huge compliment. And I really appreciate it. And I don't take that lightly. And that is, in some ways, the goal. You know, is that I think that there's, and even from the beginning that I knew, I always knew this even about myself, like, personally, from a, we're getting personal here, Like that it's just not that I want to go further.

57:12You know, I want to have a longer conversation. I want to have a deeper dialogue. I want it to be harder. I want it to be more complex. And I think for a long time, I was concerned that this was a negative because I knew from a portfolio, you know, just from a purely aesthetic standpoint, it was difficult for a customer maybe to process that. It wasn't the easiest thing to sell. It didn't lend itself to a signature, you know, signature look. Yeah, how's that signature look coming along? Yeah, it's not going very well. It's just, it's not. We've long left that goal. But, you know, I do hope that that is the signature in many ways, that we are requiring the second look.

58:09They sort of know that from having seen the work before. So they know there's, again, I mean, we joke, there's no signature look. There's no house style at Philly Cotton, right? That would be the hope. I mean, if you say that, I'm going to accept that and say it's the highest compliment, you know? Because, and I think that that's what I say with the people who are not wanting to facsimilate. I don't think I've ever had a client ever come to me and say, I would like what I saw in that X project in your book or from this magazine. Please create that work again. I've had clients say, I don't even like your work.

58:52What do you mean? I have one amazing client who's one of my best clients. But she pushed me and she liked me as a person and she liked my brain and she liked my rigor and she liked the way that I did things. But she did not necessarily like my taste. This person hated old things. Oh, interesting. And I love, you know, I love old things, you know. um and because i love old things a lot of what is in my portfolio is like you know there's a lot of antiques and all of my um dealer friends will tell you the same but like you know and so she we would joke about this like that she did not like but we then created something that was amazing and that was hers you know and she knew that i could do that she knew i had the skill and the resources to be able to pull together what she needed.

59:52So she says, despite the fact that I'm not really crazy about your work, I like you so much and believe in you that we're going to be able to make this work. And then you did, it sounds like. Yeah. Not that everyone likes me, but, you know, she does. Well, I mean, I can imagine that some people might find it a lot to understand, right? You're complex, Billy. You're not, right? You're not your average Joe. That's another kind way of saying it. Well, but I do think, I mean, and you were talking earlier about the algorithms. it's so interesting to me to see how much of the work today seems to be narrowing and looking so similar, right?

1:00:39And whether that's the algorithms or whether it's that we're all seeing those same pieces and gravitating towards those. And the challenge for the industry is how do we stay ahead of that or step away from that and keep changing the work? I mean, not even to mention AI, which is just generating all of these images based on all this work that we've seen, right? I don't know if that's showing up for you in a meaningful way. Well, this is why we depend on, you know, and I'm glad that you do a lot of work with the New York School of Interior Design. And like, you know, I'm very focused on, you know, the next generation of creative people.

1:01:22And I think that we are always going to be in a place of creative challenge and thinking about how we evolve so it's it's more like okay that exists so it's not like oh it's over like it's this is everything will now be the same it's just like okay this happened you know and now this is a sort of new uh a new challenge and a new reality and and how do we work within that framework and i think there's like you know there is just a million people doing such beautiful incredible original work look at sown they're thriving they're growing they're doing all of these things and it's the complete opposite of all of this you know they're she's lulu's building a village for for apprenticeship and craftsmanship and the whole thing so there will always be multiple roots in this world i'm excited by it i like you know i like learning about it i don't I'm super un-tech savvy myself, but I love being surrounded by people who are.

1:02:31I just always think of it as if there's more ways to be able to communicate an idea, then great. That's always going to be our biggest challenge is to take what is in our head and be able to hand it over to somebody who did not go through our training and is not looking at thinking about things exactly in the same way. So the more tools that we have to do that, then the better and the more efficient. I do like efficiency. Yes. Well, and I like that take on all of it. I promised your team that I would get you out of here on time, Billy. So I sadly have to wrap up this conversation, but it is always great to speak with you.

1:03:19And I thank you so much for making the time and I'm going to get you to nice it. So I'm glad that you mentioned that because I'm going to, I'm a big, I'm a big fan of, of what you do there and what they do there. And, you know, I do think it's so important that we are, that we are investing in training and in our design and arts education here in our country. It's really one of my big passions. And I hope that the more that I develop in this business, I'm able to give back in that world.

1:03:59And we're back. We're getting to the end of the show here. But before we go, we'd like to take a second to highlight anything going on in the industry that might have caught our eye. Caitlin, what caught your eye? This is less something that caught my eye and more of a shameless plug. But I am looking for some strong designer opinions this week as I put the finishing touches on a presentation I've been working on. So I offered some strong opinions earlier. Now I'm looking for yours. I am speaking next week at the American Home Furnishings Alliance annual meeting. And I'll be talking about a surprising gap that we found in a recent industry survey.

1:04:34We polled manufacturers and designers about their relationship with one another and found that while the vast majority of manufacturers felt overwhelmingly positive about their relationship with their designer clients, designers didn't report feeling the same way. And that gap is really interesting. I've been holding a couple focus groups that explore what trade program perks are valuable versus what designers couldn't care less about. I've been asking a lot about what inspires brand loyalty, what makes you want to shop with a brand, And what's a deal breaker that makes you say, I'm good for now.

1:05:10And basically, if designers listening have anything that they want their manufacturer partners to know about how you wish the industry worked, about how you wish they sold product to you, I really want to hear from you. So my DMs are open, my inbox is open, and I'm ready for the hot takes. But, you know, I'm excited because going to this annual meeting, the audience for this presentation really are the leaders of some of the biggest furniture companies in the U.S. who can take that feedback and make meaningful changes. And that's really what I'm hoping to kickstart next week. Dennis, what caught your eye this week?

1:05:48Well, a couple of things. One is we're we're on First Dibs earnings alert on Friday. We're going to hear from the company. And we're so curious because, as we mentioned in a recent show, First Dibs stock has been jumping out of its recent base and is up, depending on the time of day, more than 30 percent in recent weeks. And so we're curious, is this some big news that's coming or is somebody just trying to position themselves ahead of earnings? I don't know. We'll see. But it would be fun if there was something exciting to report. I've been eager to have some good news to share about First Dibs for some time.

1:06:29So stay tuned for that. Exactly. In the meantime, as we've been coming on air, something that has been happening in real time is a riveting live stream from both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and even NPR is live streaming the testimony that's going on in front of the Supreme Court about, yes, that's right. President Trump's tariffs and early signs are that apparently some of the conservative justices on the court are a little skeptical that the president indeed has the power to employ tariffs in the way that he has. So stock market was down earlier in the day and has actually completely turned around and gone up several hundred points on speculation that maybe some of the tariffs will be rolled back.

1:07:28That is a big fat maybe, and nobody should be counting too much on this, but it is it is a major case in front of the courts and and something that many people have been pinning hopes to that perhaps some of these tariffs get dialed back one way or another. Heaven knows here on Tariff Talk, we'll be tracking it and following up on it quite carefully. But it sounds like the courts won't actually be ruling on this for a while. So we'll be waiting with bated breath. But early indications sound like they're a little skeptical. So it is definitely something to watch. All right. That's all the time we have today.

1:08:07Thanks so much for listening. If you want to keep up with the latest news, browse job listings, or take a workshop, visit us online at businessofhome.com. If you want to get in touch with the show, write to us at podcast at businessofhome.com. This episode was produced by Fred Nikolaus and Caroline Burke and edited by Michael Castaneda. I'm Dennis Scully. Have a great weekend, and we'll be back with you on Monday.