Inside Henry Wilson’s New Sydney Showroom

Australian designer Henry Wilson’s new Paddington showroom is part-gallery, part-concept store, showcasing his trademark industrial-chic wares alongside items from brands and designers he admires

Sydney designer Henry Wilson is renowned for the robust elegance of his homewares, lighting and accessories. For over a decade, he’s enjoyed world-wide exposure via his website, but with the opening of his first brick-and-mortar store, Wilson is entering a new phase of deep local resonance while retaining global impact.

‘I’ve long imagined opening a store in which to show the products I design and make here in Australia,’ Wilson says. The store is effectively a bijoux lightbox within which his objects are displayed reverentially, like domestic embellishments. It features a wall of stainless-steel cabinetry with pop-up lids that reveal  Wilson’s designs: cast-brass door knobs and bookmarks, says, or aluminium bowls and marble vide-poches. Slick stainless-steel wall panels can be slid open, revealing more of his work. His table lamps, hewn from deliciously veined marble, emanate a gentle glow that’s picked up in sculpted wall mirrors. And moving beyond his usual adherence to function, a new series of modular, ornamental metal wall panels draws the eye, their rugged monumentality appearing to shape-shift as sunlight moves through the space during the day.

But the shop, Wilson insists, is not just a commercial endeavour. ‘In the face of an increasingly fragmented community, I wanted a place to meet and to house the objects we make. Somewhere for people to see, feel and sense what we do,’ he says. And alongside his studio’s work, he plans to stock items from other designers and brands he admires. These include towels and t-shirts by French-Japanese brand Échapper, home fragrances by Perfumer H and Aesop, and products from new personal-care brand To My Ships, alongside design books and magazines that reflect, and perhaps effect, Wilson’s avowedly timeless aesthetic.

Text by Stephen Todd 
Images by Dina Grinberg