DESIGNING TO SCALE
B HELLMAN-CHANG FURNITURE LOOKS TO FUTURE GROWTH WITH A RELOCATION AND UPDATED PRACTICES BY BILL ESLER
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eautiful furniture and interior appointments are inherently marketable. Pieces with a story behind them…even more so. Furniture designers Hellman-Chang has both, with arresting designs created and produced by a business rooted in a storybook tale of woodcraft that commands extraordinary prices. Dan Hellman and Eric Chang met when they were 10 and shared a love of woodworking that they indulged in during high school in a basement workshop in Brooklyn. Years later and after pursuing different career paths, they met up once again in Brooklyn, where they helped establish and embody the “Brooklyn Renaissance” with their sleek, timeless designs. Neither formally studied furniture design—Chang having studied finance and marketing in college and Hellman studying classical guitar performance. “I worked at an artists’ agency representing other artists,” says Hellman. Chang helped start a successful New York marketing agency. “But we both moved into furniture pretty quickly.” While they are self-taught in furniture design, the duo are well-schooled on the technical side of woodworking. And perhaps because they lacked that conventional training, their work is idiosyncratic and unique. “We have a passion for making furniture and trusting our own eye for what are good propositions and what is aesthetically pleasing,” says Hellman. “The market then responds to that. Most pieces get a good response and some are not very popular—we don’t bat a thousand. But as a large body of work, we definitely have a look, and a design and an appeal—design vocabulary, so to speak—that we feel our customers come back to us for.” This combination of design and woodcraft allows for extraordinarily innovative designs, yet springs from techniques in casework and joinery that push their pieces into a category all their own. When HellmanChang launched in 2011 their reputation took off quickly with the introduction of their Z table, and soon their Brooklyn showroom was buzzing with activity as wellheeled patrons ponied up for their unique bespoke designs—some selling for more than $20,000.
