Interview: Timothy Oulton

We sit down with Timothy Oulton, the celebrated British furniture designer, to talk about how he started his Hong Kong business, manufacturing in China and going global.

Brand building

Being a brand name is not something I dwell on. First time I saw my own name – Timothy Oulton – on a shop sign, I didn’t like it at all. It spooked me. But I’m used to it now.

The meek will inherit the earth, but not our furniture. Our stuff is not for the faint of heart. It is for the brave. 

Great furniture needs craftsmanship and quality materials. But above all it needs personality. 

A good sofa will change your life. The kids will come out of their rooms and play their computer games on the sofa next to you. Once you are in it, a good sofa is hard to get out of. It’s unbelievably comfortable. You will never want to leave.

You should leave our orbit thinking “blimey, that was good”. 

How it all started

My love of antiques begins with my father. He was a major in the military and he loved antiques. He started “Hale Antiques” in the village of Hale, outside Manchester.

Actually, the sign-maker misspelled it Halo Antiques. Halo is still the name of our holding company.

I went to Ampleforth College, a boarding school run by Benedictine monks in North Yorkshire, England. The place was founded in 1802. It has vast halls, ancient leather furniture, all these statement antique pieces, ancient trophies, heavy wooden tables. I absorbed a lot from that aesthetic.

Over summer I would work with my dad. I completely fell in love with the way things were made and true British craftsmanship.

We’d do a lot of house clearances, my dad and I, like you see in old films. You’d press the doorbell and you didn’t know what you would find inside. I loved it.

Every object has a story. You may not even know what that object is, but you can hold it in your hands and feel its history, the human care that it has absorbed. 

Over the years you develop an eye for detail – looking at things from the past and really seeing them, seeing the potential in them and recognising their intrinsic value. Good pieces have drama.

But the problem with antiques is that they are not making them anymore. So I decided to focus the skills I had learned on designing and reinventing antiques for the wholesale market. 

Furniture seemed to be the place to start. I teamed up with Diego, an Argentine leather master. We moved to Hong Kong and started Timothy Oulton.

Want to bounce around on some Timothy Oulton sofas? Visit his shop and many more in Horizon Plaza.

Read more: Best vintage furniture shops in Hong Kong

Manufacturing in Hong Kong and China

You can get things done here. In 2004, I moved to Gough Street in Hong Kong to set up a design and manufacturing base in Asia. I don’t know of any place in the world where I could have managed all that complexity combined with such a high level of quality.

Those early days in Gough Street are full of good memories. Many of our first staff still work with us today. 

We made our first sofa in a gym shoe factory, in Gao Ming, South China. The sofa, known as “The Westminster”, became one of our iconic pieces. We decided to turn the Goa Ming factory into a facility that made hand making workshop that made furniture in small quantities for the best shops in the world.

Our success has always been built on product quality. You can get innovative on marketing or finance. But if your product is weak you are not going to succeed. That’s why I live at the workshop.

Everyone was manufacturing in China but no one was marketing to China. I went down to the Canton fair in 2004. I was the only Westerner there. It was a total gamble but the orders came.

We have always focused on fast delivery. Over the last few years we have also built workshops in Mexico and Indonesia, and are designing something in Europe so we can be close to all our customers.

We don’t sell online. Just not right for us. We want to put our shops into the world’s 50 greatest cities. We prefer people to drop in on a store, experience the furniture, have a glass of champagne, chat with the staff.  

Today I’m primarily based in Southern China, that’s where our workshops are. Transport links between Mainland China and Hong Kong are getting stronger. This is great for companies like ours with a manufacturing base in Mainland China. 

Timothy Oulton talks style and creativity

We try not to follow fashion. 

Masculinity is part of my work. I went to an all boy’s school. I have no sisters. Yes, it was always going to be masculine. And I don’t see any reason to change that.

Luxury is the material itself. It’s beautiful all by itself. It’s important to remember the purity of things. We talk about “humble luxury” –   old wood, reclaimed timber, leather, linen. 

Buy less, buy better. I dislike disposable culture. Furniture should not be disposable.

We don’t claim to be saving the planet. But we are working hard to do the right thing. We’ve always used reclaimed materials and high quality goods that last a long time. But we can still do more. We are not doing enough to reduce packaging. I hate packaging. 

I do my best work at my workshop in the middle of nowhere. There are no distractions, I can sink my teeth into a project. 

The materials are always the starting point. We feel a material in our hands first and then the shape comes later. We bring old timber from the UK and leathers from Brazil and Argentina. 

In the early days we were known for being very masculine, but that’s changed over the years. I’m really happy with how varied our aesthetic has become, we can do rugged and casual, sleek and polished, even our own take on modern glamour.

We’re constantly looking to innovate in both our designs and the materials we use. A year ago we introduced the Noble Souls collection, it’s the first full sofa range made using 100% natural vegetable-dyed linens.

You got to try new things. Only dead fish swim with the stream.

In this digitalised world in which we live, there is a growing feeling that we really need to reconnect – both with ourselves or with others. Even more so living in a fast-paced urban environment like Hong Kong.

My motto? At least he tried.

Any final words? Be relevant or be dead.

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