Why Sam Pratt & Valerio Capo are in the Design 100

Sam Pratt and Valerio Capo founded Gallery FUMI in 2008, moving the gallery from an original space in Shoreditch to a townhouse on Mayfair’s Hay Hill as its reputation grew. Neither founder trained as a designer — Pratt came from banking, Capo from marketing — which may explain FUMI’s particular eye: a preference for makers who treat material as something to test rather than simply finish, working in small workshops with techniques from glassblowing to hand lacquering, always in exclusive, low-volume runs.

That approach has built a roster of designer-makers shown at Design Miami and PAD London, and covered in these pages — Max Lamb’s bone-china seating for 1882 Ltd among them. FUMI has also turned its own Hay Hill address into the exhibition itself, as with Casa al Mare, an Aeolian-inspired reimagining of the townhouse as a house by the sea.