Women in design: 20 furniture icons by women designers that you should know about

Eileen Gray's Adjustable Table E 1027 is one of the most copied pieces of furniture in history. And a prime example of classic modernism of which its myriad imitations are arguably the highest form of compliment to the Irish artist.

Eileen Gray celebrated real success in the 1920s despite the male-dominated society. She shocked people equally with her lifestyle as with furniture designs wherein she always aimed to design furniture that fit the times.

Today, the architect is known more than ever for the clear lines of her pieces of furniture, works which, thanks to the characteristic interplay of chrome, tubular steel and glass, are still emblematic of classic modernism and are still sought after at auctions.

The round pedestal Componibili, which is always preceded by its cult reputation and which for many children represents through its presence in their bedrooms, probably the beginning of a certain affinity for furniture design, was authored by the Italian architect Anna Castelli-Ferreri, who also co- founded the Italian manufacturer Kartell , a company established in 1949 by Anna and her husband, the chemist Guido Castelli. Together they made Kartell the world leader in the design and manufacture of plastic furniture, a success tow hich Anna contributed through her own experimenting with plastic, achieving a global fame with the "Componibili" modular system.

At the end of the 1990s Vitra rediscovered a design classic of the pop era: the storage system and wall shelf Uten.Silo by Dorothee Becker. The new edition helped the designer, who was born in Aschaffenburg in 1938, achieve a late revival and became her only commercially successful design. According to her daughter Claude Maurer, the license fees were also welcome income since Dorothee Becker lived on a small pension. Today we can only speculate as to whether Dorothee Becker's career would have taken a different path if she had not been responsible for her family as a single mother. What is certain is that in 1969, inspired by a wooden toy she had designed for her children, she designed a storage shelf made of mouldable plastic. The shelf was presented at the Frankfurt trade fair in 1969 under the name Uten.Silo, but production stopped due to rising raw material prices caused by the oil crisis in the 1970s.

Dorothee Becker's daughter Claude Maurer described her mother as a feminist. Her obituary says: “She (…) attached great importance to ensuring that her daughters were not trained to be ‘girls in pink’.” and further: “After the very stressful divorce, she used her strong sense of aesthetics and her talent and opened a shop in Munich-Schwabing, as she had to earn her own living and that of her children (partially).” Dorothee Becker ran the shop under the name of her design "Utensilo" until 1989. There she sold everyday objects and design objects for the home and garden as well as a carefully selected collection of art postcards.

Before Cecilie Manz opened her own studio in Copenhagen in 1998,the Danish designer completed her studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and studied at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki. She is now one of the most successful women in a field that is still dominated by men.

Cecile Manz's life and her use of colours, structures, proportions and materials are shaped by her passion for fine art. The works of the great men of art also serve as a source of inspiration for her designs: Caravaggio's contrasts and Constantin Brâncuși's volume, for example, easily find their way into contemporary minimalist lighting objects such as Caravaggio lamp and the Brancusi pendant lamp

Cecilie Manz has worked with numerous renowned manufacturers such as Fritz Hansen, Iittala, Bang & Olufsen and Nils Holger Moormann and has received international awards. Her work can be seen in exhibitions at major institutions and is represented in important design collections such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Design Museum Danmark. In addition to a wide range of product designs - including furniture as well as lamps or works made of glass - Cecilie Manz also designs experimental prototypes and individual sculptural pieces.

Lilly Reich, born in Berlin in 1885, was an important Modernist designer whose work was often overshadowed by her male colleagues. Reich's career began with an apprenticeship as an embroiderer and later led her to the Wiener Werkstätten under Josef Hoffmann. In 1911 she founded her own studio for interior design, arts and fashion in Berlin, where she created innovative works that remained an exception in the male-dominated industry. Reich's breakthrough came through her collaboration with the architect Mies van der Rohe from 1924 onwards. Together they designed important projects such as the Werkbund exhibition "Die Wohnung" in 1927 and the German Building Exhibition in 1931. Under Reich's artistic direction of the German appearance at the 1929 World Exhibition in Barcelona, ​​the famous Barcelona Chair was created, although this was often attributed exclusively to Mies van der Rohe. This injustice can be traced back to the patriarchal social structure of the time and probably also to Mies van der Rohe’s personal attitude.