Locally produced furniture with a sense of humour by Jess

Dutch design has a distinct and unifying characteristic: It dares to be different. The Netherlands has produced some titans in the contemporary design world, from Marcel Wander to Maarten Baas, Droog to Piet Hein Eek to Hella Jongerius, each as stridently individual as the next. It’s a tendency that’s not new: the Dutch design community’s non-conformist bent is rooted in a 20th-century modernist tradition that carved its own path. Though some of their reduced, functional forms are familiar, the likes of Wim Rietfeld and Friso Kramer innovated in manufacturing techniques and pushed the comfort levels of mid-century minimalism.

The fearlessness that drives Dutch design practitioners to break moulds also draws them together, ‘Modern Dutch design is minimalistic, experimental, and has a sense of humour,’ points out Maarten van de Goor, CEO of Dutch furniture brand Jess. ‘It is a sort of futuristic design that puts functionality in a different light.’ Indeed, examine the Netherlands’ design output and you start to see some commonalities – shape is often exaggerated, comfort is key, and materials are pushed to new levels.

Jess is a brand that designs and produces all its furniture in the Netherlands and embodies this independent spirit, while successfully seducing the interior design teams of corporate giants and hospitality venues around the world; it is represented in cities as far apart as Berlin, Miami and Philadelphia. In existence for 30 years, the company gained its current shape when van de Goor took over the reins eleven years ago. He has built a self-assured collection of home, office, and lobby-ready furniture, a mixture of in-house designs and the work of contemporary Dutch designers such as Gijs Papavoine, and Marc Th. van der Voorn.

Photographed against a sober ‘Bossche School’ backdrop, with lighting inspired by the Dutch Old Masters’ paintings, Jess’s current collection affirms its ties to the past while carving out a future manifesto. Materials and shapes define its style. Fat sofas and chairs, with plump leather cushioning as seen in the Earl, Globe, Vasa families and the new limitlessly modular Infinity take their place alongside bar stools Amy and Norman, and Sanne dining chairs, whose upholstered parts spill over the edges of the frame, and tables such as Vain whose flowing lines complement the soft silhouettes of the seating.

Unlike the industrial, processed materials of the Dutch midcentury, Jess puts an emphasis on the natural. The materials are studied: wooden tables preserve the knots that featured when the trees were felled while leathers are treated in such a way that the flaws and life lived inside the skin is evident in the surface scars and markings. Alternative fabrics and vegan leathers come in calming palettes, and are equally studied to bring comfort and warmth. The newest seating collection, Jolly, works equally well in leather and fabric, its enveloping upholstery elegantly defined by feature top-stitching.

While it increasingly finds a place in commercial and private interiors globally, the Oss-based brand is firmly rooted in its homeland, using local people, suppliers and materials, to engage in a zero-waste policy. ‘Jess is very much a 21st-century business and carefully takes people, raw materials and the environment into consideration in all that it does,’ says van de Goor. ‘We use all leftover leather; patches are used to add a playful twist to our Nelson and Mila chairs, as well as various bar stools, making them really stand out. And we are currently experimenting with using the smallest remnants of leather to create table decorations, such as coasters, placemats and bottle holders.’

It's this sort of individualistic style of doing business that simultaneously gives Jess its Dutchness and its global appeal. ‘We are different, seductive, and pure,’ explains van de Goor, using his three favourite brand-defining words. ‘Different, because of our unique manufacturing process, seductive because of our authentic and distinctive materials and idiosyncratic shapes, and pure because of our level-headed Dutch nature.’ And nobody can argue with that.

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