The Poet Of Plastic

• Share

(2 of 2)

Then there's multifunctionality, the watchword of '00s design. Rashid didn't invent it, but he has pushed it. "Every new object should replace three," he says. His packaging for an Issey Miyake perfume was a corrugated polypropylene envelope that could double as a toiletries purse; his Bozart children's chair is also a toy box; and his Q Chaise converts from a table to a chair-and-footrest and then to a daybed.

Whether or not Rashid succeeds in raising the profile of design, his own profile is way up. In April, while at the Salone in Milan, the world's biggest furniture fair, Rashid took off the shoes he had designed to lounge about on one of his installations. When he returned, one of them was missing. Just one. It probably wasn't stolen to be worn. It was a trophy.