UPHOLSTERY
Birth of an icon
Balzac became SCP’s signature design
SCP’s Balzac celebrates 30 years of continuous production In 1991 Matthew Hilton designed his first piece of upholstery, which was to become SCP’s debut upholstery: Balzac. ‘I wanted to make upholstery and I was talking to Craig Allen, who at the time was the buyer for The Conran Shop. We were selling him other products, like Matthew’s Bow shelving. I feel like we must have
Matthew Hilton
42
Interiors Monthly June 2021
had a design, because I asked Craig if he knew anyone who could make upholstery. There was a guy in East London who made a few things for Conran at the time, so we went to see him,’ says Sheridan Coakley, SCP founder. ‘I had a full-size drawing, the sketch and the model, and we just took it to the
guy. Then we went back and looked at it, and asked: “Can you make it a bit thicker here, a bit thinner there…?” We had a back cushion on it, but we struggled to make it look right. So we said, let’s just not have one,’ says Hilton. Allen then suggested ‘two guys in Norfolk who we were working out of
‘Balzac comes from a sort of ergonomic plot really, someone sitting in an armchair and then drawing a line around it,’ says Hilton
