In this year’s Best of the Best, we continue to honour the brands and people who have continued to create covetable products, even in the midst of a global pandemic. Here we have Styal by Bentley Home win ‘best desk’ in the design category
A desk has always been a nice thing to have – as much power statement as useful furnishing – but this year it was the thing to have. With traditional offices shut down because of the pandemic, suddenly where and how we worked from home mattered. The solution? A spacious, ambitious desk like Bentley Home’s, which represents the perfect fusion of practicality, status and, as the name suggests, style.
Carlo Colombo, an architect who has worked with renowned Italian manufacturers, such as Flexform and Cappellini, designed Styal, which consists of two components: the desk and a large sideboard. The latter provides plentiful storage, but it’s the former that’s a real feat of design. To create the vibrant surface, Colombo employed a lacquering technique called degrade, which involves using an airbrush to colour the wood and accentuate its natural grain. It’s slow, careful work, a process similar to the layering of paints on an artist’s canvas. The final product speaks for itself. The surface of the Styal desk is polished and striking in its racy good looks.
