About Made in Marylebone

Who am I? 

Hi, I'm Roberto and I'm the founder of Made in Marylebone.Shop. It's a small company built around some pretty simple principles. I try to make designs of the highest quality, with great details and commitment to inspire joy and wonder. And I try to have a bit of fun doing it. But to truly understand the story, I'll need to go back to where it all started.

In mid 2019, I was made redundant from an architectural corporate job of 5 years plus extras of dedication. The traditional solution to problem like this is to get another job and move on. Instead, this taught me a valuable lesson: Invest your spare time in meaningful activities to pursue your life purposes! I have always been a daydreamer with a passion and dedication for bespoke designs. Getting paid to make stuff for others is great, but to make a career out of it for your own is an opportunity not to be missed. I was a guy on a mission: Create something on your own!

Of course, the minute I took the challenge a global pandemic disrupted my plans and taught me another valuable lesson: be resilient and persistent towards your goals! Somehow the universe reciprocated my efforts from previous jobs, and told myself: I will never have this much time again for being creative! Therefore I found myself all alone in my flat in the Marylebone Village, with lots of free time to create designs, I would very much appreciate to have around the house.

Case Studies 

While trying to understand what was happening in the world, I studied how humanity recovered from global catastrophes in the past, and encountered the Arte Povera - which was a radical Italian art movement from the late 1960s whose artists explored a range of unconventional processes and non-traditional ‘everyday’ materials like soil, rags and twigs. In using such throwaway materials, they aimed to challenge and disrupt the values of the commercialised contemporary gallery system. Bearing this concept in mind, as the 2020 crisis has taught us to support more the local community, I saw the opportunity to re-evaluate the handmade bespoke designs. Therefore I came up with the idea of using a raw material like copper to create an homemade collection of practical furniture.

Why Copper? 

Copper is one of the most advanced materials in our solar system. Historically, copper was the first metal to be worked by people. The discovery that it could be hardened with a little tin to form the alloy bronze gave the name to the Bronze Age. It became central to the rise of civilisation, creating tools and sterilising water, before enabling modern day communication, transport, and electrical power. Now days, as we look for materials that offer us resistance to disease on Earth, copper is set to be at the centre of innovation again. Its ability to kill bacteria and viruses make it a potential top resource for the near future, as well as being a very malleable material to work with.