Here's Why Egg Collective Uses Raw Materials in Their Stunning Furniture Designs

From House Beautiful

At Egg Collective, it's all about high quality raw materials, and beautiful designs that stand the test of time. The brand was founded in 2011 by three female designers-Stephanie Beamer, Crystal Ellis, and Hillary Petrie-who met while studying architecture at Washington University in St. Louis. It was the collaborative nature of studio culture that Beamer says established their great working relationship, leaving them dreaming of working together one day. So, post-undergrad, they formed Egg Collective as "a loose design entity."

"We went our separate ways, working in the fields of urban design, architecture and furniture fabrication, but remained collaborators on our personal work on nights and weekends," Beamer tells House Beautiful. "Our varied experience in the design field, as well as each of our individual strengths, really help us run a business together."

And Egg Collective really is a collaboration between its three founders, who all work together on each and every design. "The three of us design all the work together, around a sketch pad, drawing with our hands," Beamer says.

From there, the creation process is all about narrowing down and perfecting their designs. They bounce ideas around before moving their sketches into the computer "to be flushed out through various iterations, studying scale and proportion," then make full-scale mock-ups and prototypes to work out all the details before finalizing the design and creating a proper prototype. Each design is made in the brand's woodshop in Brooklyn, with the help of what they call a "community of small-scale fabricators," and all finishes are applied by hand.

It's clear that a lot of thought and attention to detail goes into all the designs at Egg Collective, and Beamer notes that each piece "has its own evolution" and respective timeline.

"Some things come to fruition immediately and some things take years to find their final form," Beamer says. "We are always kicking various ideas around, and let things take their natural progression. Our Hawley side table, for example, started as a napkin sketch many years ago, and changed significantly before being released as one of the signature items in our first collection."

The Hawley table is also a great example of how live metals are used at Egg Collective, since the top is made with unsealed polished brass. "We choose to work with naturally occurring materials, and focus on both the joining and juxtaposition of these materials in each of our pieces," Beamer explains. "We celebrate the variation found in natural materials, including how natural materials patina over time. Live metals, for example, take on the water and oils that touch the surface to create a patina unique to each piece and the life lived around it."

Egg Collective's use of raw materials like live metals, wood, leather, and stone (you can read more about the specific materials they use on their website) in their designs also comes from their commitment to create what Beamer calls "ethically constructed furniture." It also means that each piece becomes its own one-of-a-kind treasure, since raw materials have natural variations in them.

You can browse top picks from Egg Collective below, or check out the rest of their designs online. And if you'd like to see their stunning pieces IRL, you can visit their showroom in Manhattan at 304 Hudson Street during business hours or by appointment.

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