10 QUESTIONS WITH ALEX & FELIX, THE FOUNDERS OF MAKER&SON
This week we sat down to speak with Alex Willcock and his son, Felix Conran, who launched Maker&Son in 2018. Together, they have created an outstanding range of natural, life-lasting upholstered luxury furniture that is unified by an uncompromising commitment to comfort...
Founders of Maker&Son Alex Willcock & Felix Conran
1.) Good morning Alex and Felix, Welcome to The Mayfair Musings! How did Maker&Son first begin?
Alex: Maker&Son really started with me writing a letter to myself; and then making a decision that I had very little to lose by starting to create a company that involved doing everything that I loved about life, in the way that I loved doing it, with the people that I loved. That’s the truth about how it began, and we haven’t looked back.
Felix: I got involved about 2-3 months after Alex began, and then it was a total handover project. For the first 2 years, we weren’t really working on it together. I did it part time, and then he did it part time...
2.) What did you both do before Maker&Son?
Alex: Initially I began my career as a furniture maker. I was then running retail stores, then running a branding agency and then a digital marketing agency. All of those bits of my career ended up being the most wonderful apprenticeship for being able to start a digitally native vertical brand called Maker&Son.
Felix: Many things. I had a clothing line, I ran an events space, I opened a co-working space, I had a branding agency and I did design for many other companies. I had a wonderful studio called CLAN Collective, which stood for Conran Lawrence Astley and Manley - 4 Central Saint Martins students.
Maker&Son Large Sofa with Large Pillows in Linen
3.) What are some of your earliest design memories?
Alex: Going on school trips to [sort of] big stately homes, and instead of being excited by the grandness. I loved - in particular - the kitchens and all of the working spaces. Anywhere that involved tools and how things were made. The simplicity of design in the most humblest of places. That really was honestly the thing that got me hooked. Really, it was seeing the beauty in the simplest of things. One of the reasons that I collect tools is because I think they are some of the best designed objects on Earth.
Felix: I have always been immersed in art and design. Most of my family have creative careers that encompass music, food or design, so my appreciation for design was instilled from a rather young age. My earliest memories are of my mother encouraging me to question the objects around me. I was constantly asked: ‘Why do you like one thing over another? What makes this better than that? What would you do differently?’ When you’re encouraged to question your surroundings, you stop taking everyday objects for granted.
4.) What makes Maker&Son so special?
Alex: The people. The people that work here. The people that buy our products. The people that make them for us. And the people that support us by following us.
Felix: So many reasons. Look at our recent collaboration with Nicola Benedetti. Our brand ambassador has nothing to do with furniture, but is closely related to our values and the way that we work. The way that we feel about doing business.
The Team. I think that every single person that we have got involved in the business is just extraordinary. We sort of have this unspoken thing, this energy that attracts people. The people that are involved is what makes it so special; from our followers to our customers to our team.
Hawk's Eye 100% Linen Song Sofa
5.) Can you tell us a little about the beautiful natural materials used to produce Maker&Son furniture?
Alex: I’m really proud of the fact that we make our products locally to where we sell them, and where possible using local materials. So, for instance in Australia, the organic wool that is used inside our furniture comes from an organic farm that is less than 30 km away from our workshop.
Felix: We try and source locally wherever we can. The wool in Australia comes half an hour from the workshop. It’s very exciting to us that we can produce these wonderful products which are all geographically unique.
6.) What inspires you and your design work?
Alex: Honestly my greatest inspiration (sounds so corny) is nature, and the natural world.
Felix: The materials themselves. I try to listen to what a material’s properties are, and there are certain things that they will never do and you should never make them try to do. Other times you are really trying to push the boundaries of what a material is capable of doing. Like the bentwood lights I make. There is no steaming, no processing. They are all held together by tension inherent to material.
Burnt Orange Corduroy Song Sofa
7.) Can you tell us a little about your interest in positive change and your commitment to sustainable and ethical comfort?
Alex: At a fairly young age - when I was only 25 actually - I found myself in a position where the decisions that I made had the ability to have an impact on many hundreds of people - sometimes many thousands of people - and this was because I was designing and developing products that were being sold in their hundreds or thousands, or sometimes in their tens of thousands. I realised that the decisions about where we bought them had the potential to have a big impact on the people who were making them.
So, because I’d learned how to make things, because I’d been trained how to make things, I understood very well the link between how you make things and the impact on the people and the materials used. I was always very, very aware of the provenance of products, and the importance of that provenance. So when I started to travel extensively to develop and source and buy products in different countries, I saw these absolutely wonderful, amazing examples of how to make products beautifully and how to treat the people who make them really well. And other examples, that really didn’t do that very well. So, I suppose I became very passionately aware of the impact of different decisions.
Topaz 100% Linen Large Song Sofa Box Edge
I’ve always inherently been aware, and it’s always been a part of who I am or what I am.
When I moved to Conran, I was responsible for buying there, across 50 countries and 2,500 suppliers, and implementing a corporate responsibility programme. It culminated in us creating an educational foundation. Following that experience, I created a design agency dedicated to making positive change. We were helping businesses to do what they did with a greater responsibility. This was in the late 90s and early 2000s. We worked with very large companies, helping them to become more aware of how their decisions and their actions would impact way beyond the choices they were making.
Felix: The bigger question is, ‘why wouldn’t you?’
With everything as it is, why wouldn’t you actively strive to be positive, to make positive change. I would ask the opposite to those that don’t.
Sweetpea Corduroy Song Love Seat Outside
8.) From the initial conception, to the Maker&Son we know and love today, what are you most proud of?
Alex: Felix. Seeing a relationship with Felix which I already thought was extraordinary become something even better. I know if I ask him to do something, he’ll do it better than I could do it. I’m most proud of him, and all that he has brought to everything that we do.
Separately, I would say that I’m most proud of allowing myself - and us - to have complete faith to ultimately let go and start Maker&Son in the first place.
Our fearlessness. We just have a process of believing in doing what we believe to be right. What feels right is what we do, and what feels wrong… well, we don’t do it.
Felix: That we - as a team, as a unit, as an everything - have never been stagnant, and it doesn’t seem like that’s ever going to happen. I’m proud of our appetite.
9.) What's next for Maker&Son?
Alex: Well, in some ways, what’s next is carrying on with what we do best, and what we do best is being ourselves. We will extend what we are already doing into many more places and bring our approach to creating things to different areas as well.
Felix: I think - in 12 months’ time - you won’t refer to Maker&Son as a sofa company. You wouldn’t think that Maker&Son was a sofa company. I guess I’m being explicitly vague, but there’s lots going on that I can’t wait to share.
Granite Large Song Sofa
10.) When you're not busy working, how do you like to relax and switch off?
Alex: Well, there are several things. Sleeping is good.
I love going for very early morning walks just when the sun is coming up.
I love playing my violin - first thing in the morning or late at night.
I love chatting to my friends in different parts of the world and hearing their stories.
I love playing with the kids - not that that really happens these days.
And I really really love cooking and making things, and having really close friends over for dinner and just having a laugh together.
Felix: I paint. And draw. Mainly painting at the moment.
I’ve started a very basic artwork blog (https://enormousf.art)
www.makerandson.com | Call us: +44 800 024 6100
