For 26 years James Irvine has been quietly and unassumingly influencing European industrial design.
Immediately after graduating from the London Royal College of Art in 1984 James Irvine moved to Milan to take up a position with the Olivetti design studio.
And has pretty much been in the north Italian metropolis ever since.
In 1992 James Irvine left Olivetti and since then has worked with companies as varied as Artemide, B&B Italia, Whirlpool, Magis and WMF. Among his most public projects is without doubt his redesigning of a fleet of Mercedes Benz buses as part of the Expo 2000 trade fair in Germany.
In 2004 Thonet released the A 660 chair, James Irvine’s first cooperation with Thonet; a cooperation that was eventually to see him appointed Thonet art director.
“The thing that would be amazing to try to do is to work with recycled material”
In Milan, (smow) spoke to James Irvine about the challenges and pressures associated with nourishing and administrating the tradition and history one of Europe’s foremost designer furniture brands, as well as where he sees the future of the company.