Dovetailors: Beautiful furniture made in Yorkshire

When David Wilson and Emmanuelle Bastide Wilson opened a small workshop in the Yorkshire back in 2005, their vision was clear: to blend precision engineering with traditional craftsmanship to create meaningful, lasting furniture. What started as a husband-and-wife business has grown into Dovetailors, designing and making sculptural wood furniture for homes, heritage sites and even royalty.

Here we share their story in more detail..

Can you tell us the backstory of Dovetailors? When and why was it started?

Dovetailors was born out of a love for the design journey and a passion for creating beautifully functional furniture. Since opening their first workshop in the Yorkshire in 2005, husband and wife team David – a master cabinetmaker, designer and natural problem solver with a PhD in engineering  – and global sales and export specialist Emmanuelle now operate a highly efficient furniture and wood component design and manufacturing business in Leeds employing a 20-strong design and production team.

What is unique about your brand?

We specialise in functional simplicity, thoughtfully designed. Our products are designed to bring beauty and balance for your home. Our work gives a unique insight into the possibilities created when technology is combined with creativity and craft. The shapes in our Flow range would be almost impossible to create without a computer but a computer alone could never create something quite this extraordinary. Our team understand how to work with wood and use their skill and tools to manufacture efficiently and build modern minimalist furniture, crafted to last.

How important is sustainability to your brand and the products you make?

Dovetailors is the home of sustainable modern furniture, designed with care to enhance the beauty of natural wood and built to last by experienced craftspeople in our UK workshop. Sustainability comes from the longevity and timelessness of our products and our commitment to ethical and sustainable materials.

Take us through the collection design process and how you work with the materials?

Thanks to some of the latest CAD software, we were able to make the complex calculations needed to create the collection’s flowing, organic shape. This is a very different way of designing and is very much like sculpting with clay. The technology allows us to create flowing chapes that just wouldn’t have been possible previously because of the highly complex mathematical calculations required.

It’s a perfect example of how ground-breaking CAD design software removes design limitations and opens up exciting possibilities for organic product shapes and innovative styles, letting us be as adventurous as we like as we mould the design. Without our knowledge of the design and manufacturing process, the technology is limited, because unless you add in that experience, to evolve the design, to plan how the components will be manufactured on our CNCs and built in our workshop, this product simply wouldn’t exist.

What are some of the plans for near future… 

We plan to expand our beautiful Flow range of furniture. We started with a small stool which doubles up as a side table. The range has since expanded to include bar and counter stools, a table, bench and chairs. There’s nothing like this on the market, it’s a totally new look and one that’s really turning heads in the interior design world.

A selection of Dovetailors’ furniture is available for viewing at House of Estila in Farringdon, London. To book an appointment please click here.

Also visit Dovertailors website – dovetailors.co.uk.

DISCOVER ANOTHER BRITISH BRAND STORY HERE.