Showroom

Ochre

Furniture, lighting, and accessories in natural materials, made to commission. Founded 1996 by Joanna Bibby and Harriet Maxwell Macdonald.

Ochre designs furniture, lighting and accessories and sells its own work rather than representing other houses, which is the fact that shapes a visit. Joanna Bibby and Harriet Maxwell Macdonald founded it in London in 1996 and Solenne de la Fouchardière joined as the third partner and designer in 2000. The New York showroom is at 96 Grand Street in SoHo, and the house keeps a second suite in the D&D Building at 979 Third Avenue.

Everything on the floor is Ochre's design and made to order through specialist workshops in the United Kingdom and the United States. The lighting is the part the house is known for, studio blown glass pendants among them, and the materials run to FSC approved timbers, bronze, horn, porcelain, leather and natural fibres, with algae based padding and low impact fillings in the upholstery.

Made to order is the practical condition. Nothing on the floor is stock being cleared, and nothing seen today will be gone next month, but equally nothing leaves the same week. What is being chosen is a build slot and a finish, not a purchase.

The two addresses answer different needs. Grand Street is a street level SoHo room a client can be brought to, and the D&D suite sits in the building where the rest of a scheme is being specified.

The Grand Street showroom is open on weekdays from 9:30 to 6. Ochre asks visitors to contact it to schedule an appointment, so book rather than assume a walk in, and the D&D suite follows that building's hours.

Blown glass varies piece to piece and that is inherent rather than a tolerance. On a multiple pendant installation over a long table, ask for the pieces to be made and selected as a set from one run, and settle that at the order rather than discovering the variation when three arrive and hang differently.