India Mahdavi/ Vladimir Kagan
Chris Lehrecke/ Jens Risom
John Wigmore / Johnny Poux
David Nosanchuk/ Pratt Institute

India Mahdavi is a Paris-based international interior, furniture and object designer whose work is focused on imagination. Mahdavi’s designs capture her personality: modern, elegant and out of the ordinary. She uses simple yet noble materials like lacquer, ceramic, rattan, and wood. Called the Queen of Color, she was the subject of a feature profile in The New Yorker magazine and her design of Sketch restaurant in London is considered the most Instagrammed in the world. She was inducted into Interior Design’s Hall of Fame in 2019, the latest of numerous awards in her career. She joined RALPH PUCCI in 2008.

Vladimir Kagan (1927-2016) was an early pioneer of modern design. A passion for architecture and sculpture is evident in his uniquely contemporary furniture. He was the first designer invited to sculpt fiberglass furniture in the RALPH PUCCI sculpting studio. Kagan’s limited-edition Gabriella bronze chair was the last piece he ever designed. He joined RALPH PUCCI in 2002.

Chris Lehrecke’s talent as a designer and his exquisite skill as a craftsman have firmly established him within the New York design community. Although a member of a generation of furniture designers who came of age in the 1980s, he has pursued a stylistic direction antithetical to the highly individualistic and often intentionally provocative work that characterized much of the innovative design of that decade. Marked by clarity and restraint, his furniture exemplifies a rational yet organic approach to design. His latest “Weimar” collection, noticeably different for Lehrecke because of its strong colors, was inspired by the architecture of his youth, as built by his father, and the shapes and palette of the Bauhaus. All of his woodwork is made in his studio in upstate New York. He frequently collaborates with his wife, jewelry designer Gabriella Kiss, who fabricates bronze hardware, as on their “After the Storm” collection utilizing trees felled in storms.

Jens Risom (1916-2016) was one of the first designers to bring the traditional Scandinavian values of function and craftsmanship to the US. He was part of small vanguard that helped establish post-war America’s leadership role in the world of modern furniture design and manufacturing. Born in Copenhagen, Risom was highly influenced by his architect father who encouraged him to pursue studies in business and contemporary design. In 1942 he worked with Hans Knoll to launch that business, and following a stint in the army, launched his Jens Risom Design in 1946. He joined RALPH PUCCI in 2005.

John Wigmore is a lighting designer and artist who cites natural materials, Minimalism, and the Light and Space movement of Los Angeles in the 60s and 70s as influences for his first light sculptures in 1993. He has continued to work with established architects and interior designers to build atmospheric light installations globally. His latest work is in ceramic, inspired by the clarity and restraint of Mexican Modernist Luis Barragan’s architecture, the sensitivity of Japanese tea bowls and Californian ceramic artists, which he captured in clay, Japanese paper shades and light. They are all hand-built, not slip-cast, rolled out individual slabs of clay that Wigmore pieces together almost architecturally. He lives and works in Los Angeles, where his lighting is made. He rejoined RALPH PUCCI in 2014.