Perspective Future Female: NEXT

May 22, 2023 By Jessica Jones

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Meet five furniture and architecture firms led and made by women

By Jessica Jones May 22, 2023

Published in Perspective

Designers thrive on looking for innovative ways to create spaces for the user-experience. This is not just about the space but also about the products and furniture you use to fill that space. It is the way that designers use their creativity to enhance the human-experience. These five women led firms are changing the narrative with their new approaches to design and architecture. Led by tenacious women, each of these inspiring firms are changing the future of design. Whether its creating furniture inspired by art or creating art influenced by culture, these unique designs represent diverse approaches to design.

Michelle Aaro
Cedar & Moss

Founded in 2013 by Michelle Aaro, Cedar & Moss is a lighting and hardware company known for blending classic, minimal and modern designs with mid-century influences. Before evolving into a company and design studio, Cedar & Moss was just an idea sparked when Aaro and her family moved into an Eichler-style mid century ranch home. What started off as just a solo project for her new home slowly developed into an idea for a newly inspired studio. With three different collections to choose from, Cedar & Moss creates designs inspired by the past but made for the future.

Image courtesy of cedarandmoss.com

Tumwater Small Pendants, Interior Design by Oliver Simon Design Photography by Janis Nicolay / Pinecone Camp

Yugen Half from the Modernist Collection
Image courtesy of cedarandmoss.com

Otti light fixture from the Minimalist Collection
Image courtesy of cedarandmoss.com

Malene Djenaba Barnett

Malene Djenaba Barnett is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist, textile and ceramic designer and community builder with an African Caribbean heritage and based in Brooklyn, New York, with an Afro-Caribbean heritage. Barnett is passionate about looking at different ways to define the Black experience while also raising awareness about racial injustice in America. She combines her design experience with her passion for social justice to create sculptural ceramic installations, mixed media paintings, and tapestries. Her dedication to both craft and purpose allows her to pay homage to her ancestors and celebrate her culture through art and design. Barnett also does custom and commission-based work.

Image courtesy of marthastewart.com
Photo credit: Alaric Campbell Photography

"MOKO I & II" from Barnett's Mud Architecture series in her private collection.
Image courtesy of malenebarnett.com

Barnett's "REMEBER ME" series explores the invisible hardship and the objects carried by Black women during the Atlantic slave trade.
Image courtesy of malenebarnett.com

Barnett's “WATER RUNS THROUGH ME” series symbolizes up who she is as a person and represents her family's heritage and legacy.
Image courtesy of malenebarnett.com

Jeneva Bell
Ruggable

Bell founded Ruggable in 2010 after setting out to design a rug that was as easily washable as a blanket or towel. This innovative design changes the usability and durability of something as simple as a rug. Bell designs with user-experience in mind, her design solution is a two-piece system with a non-slip rug pad and a removable rug cover with cling effect technology. This design solution creates rug pads for everyday use that are easily peelable and can be thrown into the washer. With various sizes, styles, and textures available for indoor and outdoor rugs, Ruggable brings modern and classic designs by award-winning designers to your doorstep.

Image courtesy of blog.ruggable.com

Barbie Collection: Signature Chevron Charcoal Rug
Image courtesy of ruggable.com

Morris & Co. Owl & Willow Green Premium Rug
Image courtesy of ruggable.com

Impasto Slate Blue Premium Rug
Image courtesy of ruggable.com

Shanan Campanaro
Eskayel

Launched in 2008, Eskayel is a textile design studio that blends fine art and craftsmanship offering hand-tied luxury rugs, custom wallpaper, high-end fabrics, and furnishings. Founder and Creative Director Shanan Campanaro’s passion for nature and travel meet in the designs of all their products. Many of the product's original designs are inspired by her own paintings. To maintain a more sustainable design focus many of the artists and craftspeople at Eskayel use water-based pigment inks and sustainably sourced materials. They also make each product to order in an effort to eliminate stock waste. Based upon original painting, Eskayel offers users a personal and sustainable product inspired by beautiful places and made by talented people.

Image courtesy of businessofhome.com

Aquarelle fabric earth from the Kassia x Eskayel Aquarelle Collection
Image courtesy of eskayel.com

The Salentu Collection wallpaper fabrics draw inspiration from Campanaro's visits to her family home in Puglia, Italy.
Image courtesy of eskayel.com

Cracked Ice Print art featured online created by Campanaro.
Image courtesy of eskayel.com

Ayala Serfaty

Ayala Serfaty is a multi-disciplinary contemporary designer whose designs blur the lines between the natural and the abstract with conceptual lighting and furniture pieces. Her design approach fuses together the art, craft, and complexity of design. Serfaty creates handcrafted lighting and furniture designs inspired by ancient traditions that take an innovative approach to how we see, think and feel design. She is mostly known for her SOMA series which is a collection of handcrafted sculptural lights. Currently, she has created a furniture series called Rapa, made of handmade textiles.