United Kingdom

Born in Sfax, Tunisia in 1959, to a French/Latvian mother and an English father, Tom Dixon moved to England aged 4 and spent his school years in London.

After just 6 months at Chelsea Art School a motorbike accident curtailed any artistic ambition and left him in hospital for 3 months. He dropped out of Art school and spent 2 years as a musician, playing bass guitar in a disco band, until another motorcycle accident left him unable to play for a period. He spent 2 more years in the burgeoning London night club and warehouse party scene. This nocturnal lifestyle left plenty of daytime to start experimenting with welded structures. Necessary bike maintenance had required welding skills, which a friend supplied in one quick lesson. He is a self-educated maverick whose only qualification is a one-day course in plastic bumper repair.

Dixon commenced his career as a designer maker in the early 1980s working in recycled metal. Since then he has worked with a series of different material types. He is particularly well known for his S-chair designed for Cappellini and the rotationally moulded Jack Lamp that gained the Millennium Mark for great British design in 1998. In 1997 he joined the UK furniture retailer, Habitat, where he is now Creative Director. Since the inception of Tom Dixon the company, he has designed products for a series of clients including Moroso, Magis, De Vecchi, Salviati, Swarovski, Materials Connexion and Dune, amongst others, and also works on interior and architectural projects.

Tom Dixon is now one of the UK's best known and respected product and interior designers. He was awarded the OBE for services to British Design in 2000. His work is exhibited in permanent collections throughout the world.


FRESH FAT is an innovative technique for hand weaving plastic using a “fantastic plastic machine” that was first conceptualized by Tom for the Selfridges Department Store design competition in the UK in early 2001. Curious bystanders became fascinated by the industrial machine endlessly producing glistening, molten strands of spaghetti-like plastic that set hard upon cooling providing endless creative possibilities. An exhibition of the technique was the hit of the Salone del Mobile, Milan, in April 2001 and Interior designEX, Melbourne the following month. Additional demonstrations have occurred at the British and V&A Museums in London as well as in Tokyo, Frankfurt and Sydney.

Tom Dixon uses the technique to produce a collection of chairs, bowls and coffee tables. The extrusion machine pumps out hot, fresh, fat polymer which is manipulated and woven by hand into primitive shapes. The Provista plastic takes on a glass like clarity as it solidifies into extraordinary constructions. Each object is unique and precious, and challenges the preconception of plastic as a throwaway material.


This large bowl in the Gallery 2021 Collection was produced at the Salone del Mobile, Milan in April 2001 and exhibited by DeDeCe at Interior designEX, Melbourne in May 2001.