Kalon Studios is a young American design studio based in Los Angeles, focused on contemporary forms and innovative design. It was founded in 2007 by a German/American, husband and wife design team, Johannes Pauwen and Michaele Simmering. Johann and Michaele’s first collection was designed for themselves when they became first time parents. The name Kalon is derived from the ancient Greek concept of “τò καλòν” (tò kalòn). To be kalòn is more than being beautiful; it is having a beauty that both is and inspires excellence. For the Greeks, this meant a beauty linked with moral worth and usefulness. For Kalon this means making products that aren’t only beautiful in form but beautiful in concept as well. Believing that true beauty radiates from the whole but has its roots in the details from hardware to motifs, from raw materials to finishes, each element is laboriously handpicked so that it too, alone, is kalòn.
“It is our sincerest hope that our products will do this as well – that the thoughtfulness and consideration put into each object we’ve made will pour back into the homes they grace and the world of which we are all a part.”
Focused mainly, but not exclusively, on children, they create beautiful sustainable furniture using renewable raw materials, and finishing them with vegetable inks or specially developed non-toxic oils. If the collection is designed in the United States, products sold in Europe are manufactured in locally from exclusively European materials in order to respect the environment. Their goal is to produce furniture that will last a lifetime and adapt to the users changing needs and tastes.
