YFM award winner’s collaboration with Benchmark

Mac Collins, an exhibitor and award winner at the 2018 Young Furniture Makers exhibition, has had his Iklwa chair put into production in a collaboration with British furniture maker Benchmark.

Benchmark first came across Mac Collins at the London Design Fair in September 2018, when the Nottingham-based designer was announced as the winner in the inaugural Cræftiga Awards for his Indigo-blue Iklwa chair.

The same year he also exhibited at The Furniture Maker’s Company’s exhibition for rising design talent and was awarded the Best in Show Prize, sponsored by Timothy Oulton, and won an all-expenses paid trip to Timothy Oulton’s manufacturing base in Hong Kong.

Since then Benchmark has worked in close collaboration with the designer to merge his design with its making know-how and craft, creating a collection inspired by the original design.

Together with Benchmark, Collins has created a collection that fuses his African-Caribbean roots with British craft, a reflection of his upbringing in Nottingham as a child of British and British Caribbean parents. Comprising a big lounge chair, a second smaller lounge chair and side table, the Iklwa family is derived from Collins’ original design and will be crafted in ash and oak, available in either an Earth Orange stain or a classic white oil.

Collins’ composition of powerful, spear-like forms is in tune with the ideas of Afrocentrism and Afrofuturism.

Much like a throne, the visually intense high back of the Iklwa Lounge Chair is intended to frame, enhance, and empower those who sit in it. Added to this are the Iklwa Small Lounge Chair and Iklwa Side Table, where Collins has continued the design language with a wide back rest and spear-like table legs.

Benchmark sought to collaborate with Collins because of their unified views on simple and honest designs.

The energy behind the design, integrity of approach and thoughtful inspiration are synonymous too with Benchmark’s own design principles which are backed by their unrivalled craft process. On the collaboration,

Benchmark founder and MD Sean Sutcliffe said: “The opportunity to support a young designer has been paramount to Benchmark since it was founded. A personal passion of mine, it was wonderful to be able to support Mac in crafting this piece for a wider audience whilst also allowing him to explore his creative freedom in terms of the collection influence and his African-Caribbean roots.”

Mac said: “It has been an honest and fulfilling process to work alongside Benchmark on this collection. I am glad to have pursued this venture with a British-based furniture maker with such integrity. It feels right to enable the design to have a wider reaching effect than I could have catalysed, and Benchmark have been a sincere and supportive partner in making this happen.”