Tom Dixon Buyer's Guide

Tom Dixon is a British luxury manufacturer of furniture, lighting, and home accessories, named after its founder. The brand’s products are well-known and highly regarded examples of the contemporary design style. 

Tom Dixon lighting products range from welded steel designs to expertly crafted Italian pieces, reflecting the experiences of Tom Dixon himself working with various other designers and brands (such as Cappellini, Habitat, Artek, and Eurolounge) over the decades. This constant process of reinvention has led to the creation of products that have become classics of modern design.

Tom Dixon products have transformed interior spaces for countless customers in private and commercial settings. If you are curious about the Tom Dixon brand, we have put together this buyer’s guide to help you to learn more, from its history and style to examples of how its products can be used in different spaces and alongside other pieces.

About Tom Dixon

The Tom Dixon company was founded in 2002 by its namesake. The manufacturer aims to bring luxury furniture, lighting, and home accessories designs to customers all over the world, and is sold from stores in London, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, New York, Milan, Tokyo, and more.

Tom Dixon himself became known in the design community in the 1980s, after developing a line of furniture that he welded himself from salvaged scrap metal. He soon began working with Italian furniture company Cappellini, where he designed the iconic “S” chair.

Dixon then went on to work for companies such as Habitat (where he was Creative Director), Artek, and Eurolounge, before receiving an OBE in 2001 and eventually founding the Tom Dixon brand the following year. In 2014, Dixon won Designer of the Year at Maison and Objet in Paris, and in 2019 he won a silver medal at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and also the London Design Medal.

Tom Dixon designs appear all over the world, with examples being the ornate design of the Mondrian Hotel in London, the McCann Erickson headquarters, an exhibition at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, and even a capsule collection for sports brand Adidas.

In 2007, Tom Dixon launched the Design Research Studio, which has worked on projects including interiors for Virgin Voyages, Paris’s Drugstore Brasserie, and the Tom Dixon headquarters itself, which is situated in London to reflect the brand’s British roots.

Tom Dixon doesn’t just work on high-end interior design projects, however. Every ounce of the brand’s ambition, innovation, and creativity is also exemplified by its range of furniture, lighting, and accessories for the home. 

The Tom Dixon name is renowned internationally for peerless aesthetic design and groundbreaking techniques.

Tom Dixon Style

Tom Dixon products—whether lighting, furniture, or home accessories—are mostly inspired by the “contemporary” design style. The term “contemporary design” is sometimes used interchangeably with the term “modern design”, although there are actually differences between the two.

Modern design usually refers to that which emerged from the wide-ranging Modernism movement, which spanned design, art, literature, music, philosophy, and various other disciplines in the early 20th Century.

Modern design was a reaction against “traditional” designs and their ornate decoration, and focused instead on form and function. Modern design is frequently minimal, with anything deemed superfluous to the function of a product removed. 

Mid-Century Modern, which emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, operated on similar principles as the modern art movement. Shapes became more abstract, colors became bolder, and a wider range of materials became used. The distinction between art pieces and pieces of furniture also started to dissolve.

From this style offshoots emerged, such as the Scandinavian design style, which prizes natural materials and neutral color tones. The term “modern design” is a broad one, encompassing early Modernism, Mid-Century Modern, and the Scandinavian style.

In contrast, contemporary design simply refers to what is most popular at any given time, and therefore is fluid and ever-changing. However, the term currently refers to a style that takes influence from various previous design schools, and focuses on minimalism, neutral color palettes, clean lines, and combinations of natural and synthetic materials.

Craftsmanship

The brand’s commitment to innovative and meticulous craftsmanship can be traced back to Dixon’s early years, where he took scrap metal and other “waste” materials and used them to forge new furniture pieces.

Although Tom Dixon hasn’t needed to use salvage materials for a long time, this ingenuity and philosophy of making the most out of materials remains. For example, the Melt pendant is created using advanced vacuum metallization, to create a “molten glass” effect that retains the strength of metal. 

The brand particularly has a love of using copper, as it has the longest recorded history of use by humans. Copper is used in many Tom Dixon lighting products and home accessories.

When steel is used in Tom Dixon products, it is always the toughest stainless steel. This material is perfect for use in kitchenware, due to its durability, aesthetic, and resistance to tarnish. Brass is also frequently chosen for its versatility, and is either polished or un-laquered, depending on what suits each product aesthetically and functionally.

Other materials that reflect the values of Tom Dixon are also used in many products. For example, stone appears regularly due to its strength and permanence—Tom Dixon pieces are built to last rather than being disposable. 

Tom Dixon’s Design Research Studio facility is the headquarters from which new design classics are continually born.

Tom Dixon Product Categories

There are three main categories of Tom Dixon products—furniture, lighting, and accessories. 

• Furniture: Tom Dixon furniture includes stools, coffee tables, dining tables, nightstands, side tables, desks, and chairs.

• Lighting: Tom Dixon lighting includes chandeliers, pendants, floor lamps, table lamps, and wall sconces.

• Accessories: Products in the Tom Dixon accessories range include decorative trays and bowls, ornaments, vases, and cutting boards.

Examples of Applications

To choose products for the home, it can often be helpful to see examples of those products in existing spaces. Here are a few examples of how different Tom Dixon products can enrich different rooms of the home.

Living Room

The living room is one of the spaces in which beautiful design is most essential, and this sophisticated lounge area is a fine example. Alongside the stylish furniture and artwork, a Melt LED Gold Trio Round Pendant System provides both lighting and a stunning aesthetic centerpiece.

Dining Room

Tom Dixon products are designed with innovation, style, and comfort in mind, and here is no exception to this rule These two Fat Dining Chairs around a dining table offer a comfort that most dining chairs do not, all while being in keeping with the aesthetics of the rest of the room.

Kitchen

 

It isn’t just large, attention-grabbing features like furniture that make a space enjoyable to live in. Accessories are also important, especially in the kitchen. This Stone Mortar and Pestle not only looks stylish alongside other kitchenware, but it is also built from high-quality marble and brass, making for unparalleled functionality.

Brands That Work Well Alongside Tom Dixon

Tom Dixon products are not just designed to look great alongside others from the same brand. The following brands manufacture products that work particularly well alongside Tom Dixon furniture, lighting, and accessories.

• Louis Poulsen: Danish lighting manufacturer Louis Poulsen has almost 150 years of experience designing artistic and functional lighting in the Scandinavian style. The brand’s commitment to luxury and excellent build quality makes its products effective alongside Tom Dixon pieces.

• Mash Studios LAX Series: The LAX Series is a range of products from Mash Studios, a brand that designs products in the contemporary style. The sleek, modern minimalism of LAX Series pieces makes them excellent partners for Tom Dixon products.

• Ferm Living: Another Scandinavian brand, Ferm Living’s range of lighting, furniture, and home decor products is versatile enough to work in many different modern spaces.

Innovation and Luxury for the Home

Tom Dixon’s well-earned reputation for groundbreaking designs isn’t limited to large-scale projects—you can benefit from their luxury products in your own home. Each piece is crafted with only the finest materials and most effective techniques, and this makes all the difference.

At House and Hold, we're the authorized retailer of the full Tom Dixon product line, which means the products are warranted against manufacturer defects, so you can purchase with confidence.