Hospitality Design - December 2011 - 77

pro le: iacoli & mcallister

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By Ashleigh VanHouten Photography by Charlie Schuck and Kyle Johnson

it takes two
Seattle-based design team Iacoli & McAllister is certainly a product of the technological age: Jamie Iacoli happened upon Brian McAllister’s MySpace proﬁle via a friend in 2007, and after noting his appreciation for contemporary furniture designers, reached out to him. They met for a beer, discussed their shared design goals, and shortly thereafter, started working together. According to Iacoli, it was simply the planets aligning. “We’re both earth signs. He’s a Capricorn and I’m a Virgo,” she shares, adding that while they started their business as a couple, the two have now managed to successfully transition into being best friends and business partners. “We just started making things…it was very organic.” With a shared aesthetic vision resulting from backgrounds in industrial design, the duo’s creative process is a collaborative one. “Brian is more of the idea machine,” Iacoli admits. In the early stages, she says they explain concepts by “drawing in the air with our hands. We see things the same way, so we don’t need to draw things out.” Central themes of simplicity and versatility ﬂow throughout all their work, evident in the clean, simple lines and vibrant pops of color in their Panca benches and Frame lights, made with wood and powder-coated steel. While their passion lies in furniture and lighting, challenges with storage spurred the team to expand to smaller items like pedestals and even jewelry. “We didn’t want to be pigeonholed into doing one thing,” Iacoli says. Their business took off in 2009 when they participated in the American Design Club’s Hue Are You? exhibition in Brooklyn, and the owner of the Future Perfect showroom took a liking to their designs. “We thought, one day, the Future Perfect will carry our stuff. And they ended up being the ﬁrst to carry us, so it gave us a lot of conﬁdence,” Iacoli remembers. The team will unveil a new collection at the 2012 International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF), including a series of credenzas inspired by artist Donald Judd. According to Iacoli, they are “tight, beautiful shelving units, part art and part functional, all black and brass.” Their furniture also appears in designer clothing store Oak in New York, and they are working on a product line for Urban Outﬁtters, due in 2012. Although they love the supportive, creative community of Seattle, the two plan to celebrate their success with a move to Los Angeles to be closer to clients. It is still the West Coast, where “it’s slower paced, and we’re the fast ones,” Iacoli says. iacolimcallister.com

Clockwise from top left: Brian McAllister and Jamie Iacoli goof around; the new large Frame Light Cluster in black powder-coated steel; their distinctive jewelry hangs above a Panca bench, made with color-washed oak; and minimalist Frame tables help show off the designer clothes at Oak in New York.

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December 2011

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Hospitality Design - December 2011