Emerging UK Designer hits INDEX 2018

The UK pavillion at INDEX arranged by BCFA’s own, Sue Graves, will be taking across a young and emerging designer to the September edition of INDEX this year. 

Matthew Pope grew up in the South west of England and studied BA Furniture and Product Design at Nottingham Trent University. While at NTU he had the opportunity to work with furniture giants, DFS. Whilst there Matthew learnt a huge amount about upholstery and this is where he feels his upholstery design career started.Since NTU, Matthew has won the 100% Design Award for his Modular Sofa in 2016 and this was his first experience of what it would be like to exhibit around other more established brands.

Shortly after the 100% Design show he was cast into a program called ‘Pop up Start Up’. The show followed 10 young entrepreneurs setting up their own businesses and sourcing manufacturing from China.

Now, Matthew is gaining hands on experience making and upholstering individual pieces of furniture.Getting into INDEX

Matthew Pope met Phil and Victoria of Scarlet Opus at The Young Furniture Makers Exhibition where he was exhibiting his Modular sofa.

The Modular Collection is a customisable piece of furniture for inner city living where space is at a premium and often difficult to access .The sofa’s modular sections can be rearranged, replaced or added to create a larger or smaller sofa, to allow for adaptability. Each section is customisable, with bright and exciting fabrics, giving the user more freedom to design a unique sofa for their home and offering an emotional connection to the piece. The design allows the sofa to be broken down and transported in a small car allowing it to easily move with its owner.

After that Victoria and Phil were already thinking of a possible collaboration and how they could help Matthew get his designs out into the world!The Collaboration

When Scarlet Opus put Matthew in contact with Boxmark Leather,  and straight away both were just as excited to collaborate as each-other! Thomas Benz from Boxmark has been so invested in the project creating unique leathers for Matthew’s furniture and is as excited to see the finished product as much as Matthew is.

The collaboration allows a sense of luxury to be invested into Matthew’s designs.

The Design

Matthew and Boxmark are creating 3 special Seat units for INDEX 2018. Using the Award Winning Design from Matthew Pope; these seats will feature a exclusive Boxmark gold leather created exclusively for the show and beautiful embossed leather to border the exclusive gold. The other 2 seat units we will be exhibiting are 2 of Boxmark’s premium leathers chosen by Scarlet Opus.

Find Matthew Pope and Boxmark’s collaboration in the UK Pavilion. You can visit the UK Pavilion at INDEX from the 16-18 September at the Dubai World Trade Centre. Click here to get your tickets now.