Last year textile designer Susan Hable decided to try something new. After spending several seasons working with her sister, Katharine, on an exclusive collection of fabrics and pillows for Hickory Chair, she had the urge to push herself further. “I thought, I have more to say,” Hable recalls. She reached out to the firm’s creative director, Skip Rumley, and her furniture line, Hable for Hickory Chair, was born.
A Texas native, Hable started out making jewelry and then formed the textile company Hable Construction with Katharine. The brand’s signature colorful fabrics, pillows, bags, and storage baskets put the siblings on the style map and led to the initial relationship with Hickory. “Until we came along they’d never tried fabrics,” Hable says, “but, like us, they’re very open-minded.”
Hable’s new furniture line reflects her interest in modern Scandinavian and Italian design, as well as her jewelry background and nimble drawing hand. The elegant Dove sideboard, for example, features a teardrop pull mounted on an inlay of ebony, while the leather-paneled drawers of the Agnes console are digitally printed with Hable’s artwork. With coordinating accessories for sister brands Maitland-Smith and La Barge, the collection exudes a simple grace and a consideration for materials. “I just wanted everything to have good bones,” the designer explains.
她也喜欢挑战。她的安德森椅子one of Hickory’s first variable-pitch reclining loungers. “I love making something chic that fills a niche,” she says. The Bird chair, a curvy update of a traditional wingback, was even trickier to achieve, she notes, adding that getting it right required multiple trips to Hickory’s North Carolina factory. Fortunately Hable’s home base in Athens, Georgia, is only a few hours away, allowing her, she says, to “be involved at every step.”
For Hable this hands-on aspect is the most exciting part of the collaboration. She’s already at work on 20 additional pieces. “If you’re creative and curious,” she says, “you’re destined not to stay in a situation where you’re playing only one note.”hickorychair.com
