Designer Stefan Diez On The Brilliance Of The Everyday

So what I wanted to do was concentrate on designs that are particular favorites of mine, and just do a little bit more of a, of a deep dive into them.

And also talking about why, I hate the word sustainability, but why that has...

Has that always been such an important part of, of, of your kind of thought process, or is it something that you have really kind of brought more into the fore because of the way of the world?

Uh, no, it was not always like that.

I want to be really honest.

Um, being influenced by the craft background of my parents, I think it was very, uh, sustainability oriented, although nobody was used this word before.

It was sustainable because it was produced locally, and we were mainly using local wood, um, from Germany, France, and, um, the region there.

That time, you know, like, you, you knew basically still the tree.

You, you bought the tree from, uh, uh, uh, from the sawmill.

You are not buying it in the internet.

You actually go there-The whole log is like the tree is in a way opened up for you, and then you decide which, as a, which, yeah, which tree you buy and, uh, which veneer that you buy.

And of course, um, this was due to the fact that also that time, uh, craftsmanship was already expensive, so whatever came out from that craftsmanship was supposed to last for decades.

And so it, in a way, was somehow sustainable.

Although nowadays, as a in between, I think, uh, with all the globalization and digitalization happening early '90s, um, I was very much, uh, affected by the idea of exploring Asia, ex- doing all this kind of stuff.

I was definitely loving this to go to China, visiting factories, and also using all this kind of hunger for trying out things as a source of inspiration and trying new things.

Yeah.

That was for sure something.

It was necessary for us, for me, uh, but it was now we're working completely different.

Yeah.

But I guess without having done all that and had all that experience and a knowledge and that's, you know, that makes you appreciate more now what you do n- now.

And it's sort of, it's about choice, isn't it? You can do, you can make things in China and do it that way, or you can do it differently and, you know, some things are better made in China.

I mean, there's not, it, there's not a right or a wrong.

Yes, absolutely.

No, it's absolutely not against China.

First of all, I wa- uh, just the opposite, I would say.