His voluptuous chairs and custom creations attract clients including Hermès and Equinox
Photography by CHRISTIAN ANWANDER
Words by DEGEN PENER
“I don’t like to be pinned as one kind of thing,” says Michael Felix, a third-generation furniture maker. “What I design can feel diverse.” What links his practice together — in addition to everything being made to order by hand in Los Angeles — is an ingrained desire to create pieces that are both instantly eye-catching and supremely livable.
“Growing up in the furniture trade, I felt that the industry was lacking in the intersection of beauty and function,” says Felix, whose furniture can veer from classic modernist to “eighties post-modern Italian.” He worked as a sample maker’s assistant in the City of Industry furniture factory his grandfather founded in 1959.“I was stapling and upholstering and working on prototypes and samples. It was great to learn from the bottom up,” he says.“From there I went to the design department, then kind of leading the design department.”
“Furniture was lacking in the intersection of beauty and function.”
He struck out on his own a little more than a decade ago.“I thought it could be interesting with the advent of Instagram to start my own thing. It was kind of the beginning of Internet buying 10 years ago,” he says. His newest creations include custom wood tables made for the buzzy new Silver Lake wine bar, Barr Seco, as well as postmodern ceramic-topped side tables made in collaboration with artist Zane Zappas. They add to his body of works — which have been acquired by Hermès for a U.S. store and Equinox for its corporate offices — that include his voluptuous Madda chair and his elegant French 1950s-inspired Goddard daybed.
Felix also recently ran and operated a pop-up design gallery in Hollywood, allowing him to show his pieces in conversation with works by local L.A. artists.“I loved having it, but it did take me away from design a little bit. I’m in a stage right now of focusing on new designs.” His dream is to“design a boutique, small hotel in the southern coastal Italian town where my family is from.” michaelfelix.com.
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KERI RUSSELL wearing JACQUEMUS jacket and TOM FORD shorts.
Feature image: Michael Felix at his home in the Los Feliz hills.
This story originally appeared in the Winter 2024 issue of C Magazine.
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