For four decades, furniture company SCP has been a huge and guiding presence in design. Founded by Sheridan Coakley in 1985 (the initials stand for ‘Sheridan Coakley Products’) SCP has brought a vital generation of talent to the market and helped to pioneer the retail of contemporary furniture. Moreover, SCP even helped resuscitate Shoreditch in east London – then a tired backwater.
As a vintage furniture dealer, Sheridan found an old upholstery factory in Curtain Road, Shoreditch which gave his fledgling company a potential showroom and manufacturing space. In the midst of the 1980s ‘design decade’, SCP opened with an ambitious show of French design giant Philippe Starck. Showing a keen nose for all kinds of design, Coakley commissioned a logo and invitation from legendary graphic designer Peter Saville.
Coakley began commissioning new pieces from then-emerging designers Jasper Morrison and Matthew Hilton, showing them in the Milan Furniture Fair in 1986 and helping to re-establish the UK as a centre of creativity while ushering in a renaissance in British design. Since then, many SCP pieces have become design classics, such as Hilton’s 'Balzac' chair of 1991.
With a footprint across the whole design industry, SCP also supplies furniture to architects and interior designers and has established an upholstery factory in Norfolk, not far from Harry CJ Wix. This has enabled SCP to control with entire production line and create true sustainability, phasing out elements such as polyurethane foam in favour of natural materials.
SCP still builds on its repertoire, with younger designers such as Andy Masebo, Julie Richoz , Donna Wilson, Philippe Malouin and Sarah Kay sitting alongside established names like Matthew Hilton, Morrison, Terence Woodgate and Konstantin Grcic. Four decades on, it remains true to its founding principles: to innovate and sell design that is functional, unfussy and made to last. SCP will soon close its doors in Shoreditch to open a new store in Clerkenwell Green.
