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Thomas O’Brien’s extensive collections for Reed & Barton –
the first time the esteemed silver house has paired with a boldfaced design name
since its successful Ralph Lauren partnering – captures the classic comfort
idiom for which O’Brien is fast becoming known. Through his interior design
work, his New York shop/atelier – Aero – and his growing cadre of home
furnishings licenses, O’Brien’s take on classic styles – which he calls warm
modernism – is familiar but fresh, casual but elegant, masculine but feminine,
new but old, sensual but simple.
In fact, O’Brien’s ambitious program for Target – vintage modern – which
launched fall 2005 typifies the ultimate contradiction: high-styled design for
the masses. While it’s not the boyishly charming 46-year-old’s intent to be all
things to all people, he is convinced he can successfully deliver traditional
looks to modern-day consumers. “Marrying luxe with mass and making traditional
things fresh are about breaking rules,” O’Brien clues, “and I have always been
about breaking rules.”
This reinvention kick has paid off big for Reed & Barton who, truth be told,
hasn’t always been about breaking rules. O’Brien is helping catapult the
Massachusetts-based metals producer into the 21st century with hundreds of items
across all tabletop categories – dinnerware, stem and barware, flatware,
accessories, and gifts. It’s just the jolt of adrenalin needed to revitalize the
183-year producer. “With this launch we become a company that offers a full
spectrum of tableware and gifts,” acknowledges Sara Carcieri, the company’s V.P.
of marketing. “We’ve incorporated dinnerware into our mix and repositioned our
giftware business with a stronger decorative perspective. Thomas brings a
genuine lifestyle perspective to tableware that people can buy into in grand or
small ways. Stylistically and practically, this thoughtful, well-designed
collection has it all.”
The two-years-in-the-making assortments were greatly inspired by O’Brien’s ardor
for collecting, a lifelong passion stirred by his father and grandmother whom he
accompanied on jaunts to flea markets and estate sales. “I collect everything
from textiles to art, but there’s nothing as immediate or gratifying as finding
beautiful pieces to set a table with,” O’Brien exclaims. “Tableware acts on all
of the senses: the feel in the hand, the visual beauty, even the sound of the
crystal and flatware. Tableware is one of the easiest, most attainable ways to
start setting up a sense of style and a sense of home, and it remains one thing
in the home that has great potential to make entertaining very special.”
O’Brien had a hankering to design tableware for years, so when the opportunity
to partner with a company that reflects his own design sensibilities presented
itself O’Brien champed at the bit. “I love Reed & Barton’s history and quality
products,” O’Brien begins. “The development process was a wonderful
give-and-take with terrific results.” Dinnerware suites ($90 to $130, five
pieces), flatware ($60 to $65, five pieces), stem and barware ($12.50 to $50 a
glass), and giftware ($35 to $150) bear O’Brien’s warm modernism signature.
Flatware, he notes with interest, was the most difficult medium of all to
master. “It’s a good thing I was working with a company who makes great
flatware,” he chuckles. O’Brien’s Reed & Barton assortments well suit his
trademark oeuvre: a mix of the refined and luxurious with simplicity and
honesty. “That combination is what keeps a home real and lived in,” O’Brien
purports. “I invest both high and functional values in my product designs to
develop that balance. With this collection I want people to feel they have
options to dress it up and dress it down.”
Offering options was honed at an early age. O’Brien’s degree is from the
prestigious Cooper Union which helped lay the foundation for his decorative arts
zeal. His first substantial job – a graphics designer at details magazine – led
to years of visual display for Ralph Lauren where his eye was so valued he was
tapped to help in the redesign of Lauren’s Bedford estate. By the time he was
30, O’Brien established his own shingle with the opening of Aero, in 1992. His
design lab is a hip and eclectic SoHo emporium with a rotating selection of
cherrypicked antiques and custom pieces which perfectly capture the zeitgeist of
the trendy neighborhood. “I used to play store when I was a kid,” he confesses.
“I love being a merchant. I’d never give up my store. It influences everything I
do and it’s where I get to really practice design.” Below the store is O’Brien’s
design atelier where he works on his interior design clients. (In addition to
Lauren’s house, O’Brien re-envisioned the home of Giorgio Armani as well as the
SoHo luxe boutique hotel, 60 Thompson). “Things we design for clients’ projects
often inspire new products for the store,” O’Brien notes. “There’s a lot of
interplay.”
continued . . . .
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