Inside specialist furniture maker and upholsterer Sedilia

‘This is the perfect expression of what we do,’ says Robert Stephenson as he smooths a bolt of yellow fabric over the gently curved back of one of his sofas. Every component of the piece has been made in his workshop. It is a contemporary, sculptural design – a style that Robert’s workshop Sedilia, which he founded in 1998, has become known for and has earnt him a client list that includes interior designers such as Sophie Ashby, Martin Brudnizki and Studio Reed. ‘For me, it has always been about crisp, clean lines and elegant proportions,’ he explains. ‘We approach our pieces as sculptural art forms, but they also have to work from a functional point of view.’ Upholstered armchairs and sofas are the company’s main focus, the majority being one-off bespoke pieces developed in collaboration with interior designers.

All around Robert, his team of 15 are hard at work. Hidden behind an unassuming door on a busy road in Clapham, the workshop is flanked by individual work stations. At one, a man is lashing together coil springs to create a hand-sprung seat for a sofa. At another, an armchair seat is being built up from layers of latex foam and wool. ‘We use a combination of modern and traditional materials and techniques,’ says Robert. ‘My rule is to always use whichever is the most suitable for the piece.’

His first step into furniture design and making was at the age of 18, when he enrolled on a two-year cabinet-making course in Shropshire.‘I had always loved the idea of working in wood,’ Robert says. ‘I enjoyed the fact that it moves and breathes even when you make it into furniture.’ Keen to further his skills, he signed up to another course at High Wycombe Furniture College. ‘Although, initially, I was studying cabinet making, I found myself drawn to the upholstery workshop.’

After a stint working in High Wycombe, he moved to London in 1988 and started a job working alongside the ‘old boys’ in an upholstery workshop. ‘I learned a lot,’ says Robert, who spent almost a decade there. But, bar a few commissions for interior designers, he found himself increasingly frustrated by the lack of quality innovative design. ‘There were plenty of wonderful makers, but everything was generic in style.’

And so, in 1998, Robert launched Sedilia from a small workshop in Borough, with the aim of making elegant, well-crafted and comfortable sofas and chairs. Cabinet making, he explains, was fundamental to his vision, as it taught him ‘the importance of proportion, definition and crisp lines’. The business was tough to begin with, but he soon started to assemble a list of clients. A big break came in 2002 when he landed a commission for a pair of sofas from Studio Reed. The only snag was he had just three weeks to design and make them – but he pulled it off and the studio remains one of his biggest clients.

In 2017, Robert and his growing team moved into the current workshop in Clapham. Long and thin, it is three times the size of the space in Borough and spreads out as a production line, with the frame workshop at one end. ‘I used to have to outsource frame-making, as we didn’t have the space, but I can’t imagine not having it here now. The frame is the skeleton that defines an entire piece.’

Although a traditional approach underpins Sedilia, Robert embraces modern methods, too. Frames are mainly made from solid beech, but increasingly he is turning to CNC-cut (computerised numerical control) cabinet-grade birch plywood. ‘I used to be a bit snobbish about plywood, but it is the obvious choice for curved pieces,’ he admits. Fillings also run the gamut from traditional to modern: everything from wool and horsehair to foam. ‘Foam is great for defined shapes, but we’re putting a lot of research into sustainable alternatives,’ says Robert, who has recently experimented with fluffy bamboo and latex foam for the in-house ‘Roll Top’ chair and sofa.

Sedilia launched its own furniture collection in 2019, in what Robert describes as a ‘natural progression’. He had wanted to do this for years, but it was not until Alice Lockerbie was appointed head of collection in 2018 that it felt the right time. ‘For us, it’s all about refining: we take an idea for a shape back to basics and introduce details one at a time.’  

Sedilia: sedilia.com | @sedilia_london