Secondhand September is a month-long celebration of the value of previously used items – from well-loved garments awaiting minor repairs to antique home goods that tell a story of another time. To mark this important campaign, we have been invited by Vinterior, the home of previously-loved furniture, to collaborate on One of One. A capsule collection of unique pieces from Vinterior, each is reframed through a new lens by different designers, including TOAST. We chose to partner with textile artist Hannah Refaat to creatively repurpose a mid-century chair. Completed over a number of weeks, the result honours its design heritage while showcasing traditional mending techniques.
TOAST selected a 1960s oak armchair by Swedish designer Bröderna Anderssons from Vinterior’s catalogue of over 130,000 items. Founded in 2016 to minimise waste and promote the enduring quality of decades-old design, Vinterior is devoted to rescuing furniture from landfill – helping to reduce the approximately 22 million items discarded each year in the UK alone, one rediscovered treasure at a time.
It was this shared passion for preservation that inspired our collaboration. “We were drawn to TOAST’s commitment to considered living and ability to bring emotional depth to everyday rituals,” says Sophie Salata, Head of Brand at Vinterior. “We have a mutual commitment to craft, provenance and purposeful design, and this felt like a creative way to work together.”
Our chosen chair travelled to Hannah Refaat’s London studio for bespoke reupholstery. A textile designer and part-time lecturer, Hannah draws deeply on global craft traditions, shaped by her Egyptian heritage and studies in Middle Eastern textiles. This perspective naturally informs her interest in Japanese mending techniques, which guides many of her projects. Earlier this year, a commission for the Japanese Embassy deepened her exploration of these methods, reinforcing her dedication to thoughtful, low-waste craftsmanship. “It involved looking at a lot of historical sources, which continued to influence my work on this collaboration,” she explains.
Hannah combined boro patchworking and sashiko stitching to create a new fabric for the seat cushion and back of our mid-century chair, both decorative techniques intended to make repairs a visible and characterful addition. Boro patchwork originated as a craft of necessity – rural communities in Japan, lacking resources for new garments and bedding, stitched together scraps from existing fabrics. “Boro is a craft of mending and reusing to give materials new life,” says TOAST Head of Home Judith Harris. “It mirrors the spirit of vintage - recycling, reimagining, and preserving resources. We felt it was apt to bring these two cultural influences together in a piece that feels both modern and contemporary.”
In today’s culture of constant replacement, this approach felt particularly resonant to Secondhand September. Embracing the spirit of reuse, we provided Hannah with fabrics gathered from the TOAST archives: a medley of indigo-dyed cotton, wool and linen. Because the textiles varied in weight and texture, Hannah used a needle felter to create a workable surface. “It fuses the fibres together without any stitching, creating a single, flat piece. That way, I could easily embroider onto it and wrap it around the chair, knowing it would hold together.”
Hannah used white and light-blue cotton thread to complement the patchwork’s palette, creating broken lines across the fabric that occasionally intersect with stitches running perpendicular, forming small crosses. Subtle red accents were incorporated to “lift the piece,” alongside hints of patterned fabrics for added dimension. While the TOAST design team offered a starting concept, Hannah had the freedom to experiment, and the process was mostly intuitive. She approached it without a solid plan, finding her way through playful exploration. “I trusted my own instinct,” she says. “It's the best way to use my creative abilities, figuring it out as I go along.”
The resulting armchair rewards those who pause to look closely at its details – the warm patina of aged wood, the intricate patchwork of layered fabrics, and the delicate precision of each hand stitch. It is a piece that blends histories and traditions, uniting mid-century Swedish design with Japanese craft heritage, reinterpreted through the lens of a British-Egyptian maker.
To share this journey, we’re inviting our community to experience the chair in person. It will be displayed at our immersive three-day event at Cavendish Square to launch our Autumn Winter collection, The Curious Mind. In The Reading Room, a library space created in partnership with Vinterior, our design will sit alongside other items of furniture in the collection, each created by a different brand or artist.
Following the event, the chair will be listed on the Vinterior website, ready for the next chapter in its story with a new owner. We hope, wherever it lands, that it is cherished and used for many years to come. Sophie Salata reflects, “The chair is an artwork you can sit on. For those that have an affinity with TOAST, it’s a chance to own a piece of their history, with previous collections quite literally woven into the fabric.”
View the TOAST x Vinterior chair and the entire One of One collection in the Reading Room at The Curious Mind, 14 Cavendish Square, London between Fri 5 to Sun 7 September. Following the event, the chair will be available to purchase at Vinterior.
Words by Bébhinn Campbell.
Photography by Milo Hutchings.
Add a comment