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The Egg Collective Showroom in New York
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From left: founders Hillary Petrie, Stephanie Beamer and Crystal Ellis
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Another view of the Egg Collective Showroom in New York
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Egg Collective’s Margot George chandelier
Hillary Petrie, Stephanie Beamer and Crystal Ellis of the New York-based design company Egg Collective are three friends who made good on a college pact to launch their own collaborative design firm — and it’s one that, in a few short years, has garnered serious accolades from The New York Times, Wallpaper*, Surface Magazine and others. Here, the trio talk to Tory Daily about their inspirations and share their start-up secrets, like how to overcome hurdles by… tripping the light fantastic.
As freshman studying architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
The inspiration behind Egg Collective…
Each of us has parents who are entrepreneurs, so it seems we all inherited a bit of their entrepreneurial spirit. Forming a company together was something that we, at first, joked about, then toyed with, and finally committed to after collaborating with each other for close to 10 years. At that point we felt we knew ourselves, and our craft, well enough to commit to designing one collection of furniture. We moved to New York City in the fall of 2012 and released our first collection of furniture nine months later at ICFF. That period of time was one of those super-important, fuck-it, throw-caution-to-the-wind moments where we jumped into the unknown and waited to see what would happen next.
The story behind the name…
Our name, Egg Collective, predates the company. We picked it when we were 22 and had just graduated from school. We each were looking for jobs but also wanted to establish our own design practice, so we committed to meeting once a week for a collective meal and design session. Naming something has a way of legitimizing it, so during one of those meals/meetings we decided that we wanted to give our group a name under which to operate. We were young and didn’t know what would come from the work we were creating together; we chose the name Egg Collective because we like that the egg references both incubation and creation while also being a naturally occurring structural and sculptural form.
Our design inspirations include…
Confident women. Recently we were on a panel with a fantastic selection of young entrepreneurs, and we were surrounded by so many other women! It is still rare to meet female counterparts in our industry — meeting other females who are running creative companies is truly inspirational.
As far as designer icons, the inspiration for our work comes from all over. Minimalism, specifically the purity of forms and the play between negative and positive space found in works by Agnes Martin, Donald Judd and Frank Stella. Art Deco, which is quite a juxtaposition to minimalism but is inspirational in its attention to detail, quality of craft and layering of materials. Nature, specifically rock formations, crystalline structures, flowers, patterns and color. Early American furniture: simple functional forms with clean lines and slight flourishes. Architecture/design: the intimate understanding of human scale, proportion, detailing, materiality and structure, and especially works by Philip Johnson, Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand, Eileen Gray, Paul Rudolph and Peter Zumthor.
Good design is…
Beautiful and functional
Most exciting part about owning your own business…
Calling the shots, being able to share our vision and Amex points.
And the most challenging…
Doing it all! We not only design our product — we fabricate, finish, assemble, market and sell it as well. We are a small team, which means we wear a lot of hats.
And how to overcome the above…
Turn on some music and dance!
When starting a company, you must…
Put on your seat belt — it’s a wild ride.
And never be afraid to…
Stick to your guns. People will question you, even you will question you.
Best business advice received…
For the first 10 years, the wind is in your face; for the second 10, it is at your back. We are working towards the latter.
The key to working seamlessly as a group…
Good communication and not letting emotions get in the way of the right decision.