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When stocking a kitchen, the impulse, most often, is to buy items that match — white dinnerware sets, uniform cutlery, understated glassware. Danish design studio HAY has teamed up with chef Frederik Bille Brahe, of Copenhagen restaurant Atelier September, to build a collection of kitchen tools and dinnerware that stand as an antidote minimal uniformity. Exclusive to MoMA Design Store, the curation is made to be mixed and matched, offering every tool a kitchen might need at an affordable price point, and reimagined through a design-conscious lens.
A pop-up cafe during Milan Design Week in 2016, at which HAY invited Bille Brahe to recreate the food and atmosphere of Atelier September, planted the seed for what would ultimately grow into the HAY Kitchen Market collection. “Frederik and I built a cafe out of flea market finds mixed with HAY products,” explains HAY co-founder Mette Hay. “We talked a lot about function — styles of glassware, how a colored bowl can be beautiful with food. Those conversations were very inspiring.” Function and affordability have long been essential to HAY’s wares, while the Kitchen Market’s industrial touches stem from Bille Brahe’s own design preferences.
“The [polyethylene] cutting board, for example, has existed for years in industrial kitchens. Frederick and I just put some new colors on them and made some different sizes,” Hay says. Pieces like the Woods Mug ($19) and Paper Porcelain series are in HAY’s existing catalogue, though most products have been sourced from international manufacturers and modified to fit the collection. Utilitarian glass jars and storage containers were made by longstanding brands like Simax and Pasabahçe, glass cups and saucers were sourced from France and pitchers were made in India.
The mix-and-match aesthetic of the seemingly haphazard curation parallels HAY’s series of desk gear, and encourages a home that’s design-conscious but relaxed — lacking in pretension and teeming with objects intended to be used daily.
Next up for the Danish design brand is a collaboration with Ikea, slated to launch in October and comprised of furniture, shelving units and home accessories — as well as a new spin on Ikea’s iconic Frakta bag.
