Jonathan Adler, potter, designer and pop star

Jonathan Adler is the man who created a needlepoint cushion that masquerades as a Prozac tablet. His survival kit also contains decorative pills crafted from acrylic, delicately decorated porcelain weed canisters, and Xanax pill boxes cast in brass. “Yet I’m the cleanest living person on the planet!” he says with a smile. “I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I’m at my home gym twice a day. I express my hedonistic side through design. I live clean, and decorate dirty.” The philosophy that primarily underpins the work of this American designer and potter, who shot to fame in a few short years, is the desire to not take life too seriously. His world serves up a potpourri of pop hues, clouds, symbolic and surrealist motifs, all imbued with references to the style of the 1950s-70s, which he has christened “Modern American Glamour”. His long list of muses features the likes of David Hicks, Gio Ponti, Yves Saint Laurent, 1990s hip hop artists, Andy Warhol, Sex and The City, Madonna, and Alexander Girard, the famous post-war textile designer whose creations Vitra still produces to this day.
As iconic in New York as on the West coast, his exuberant designs are steeped in humour and irreverence. Rather like the designer, in fact, who describes himself as a “louche, hedonistic, rich-hippie”. He’s certainly not one for mincing his words, branding minimalism “a bummer!” and asserting that “celebrities should pay full price”. Which, to be honest, would only be fair, bearing in mind that his lighting “makes you look younger and thinner”. His mantra? “Your home should make you happy”. At one time in his life, Adler had a raging obsession with the regimented “waspy country club style” favoured in all-American preppy circles. Think sweater-clad men and pearl necklaced women congregating at the clubhouse. But Adler came up with a more Warhol-esque take on the look, incorporating jocular injections of overtly acidic green hues and a profusion of chinoiserie. It unquestionably sparked his longstanding passion for handcrafted needlepoint cushions, though his politically incorrect designs clearly found their inspiration elsewhere. A few years later, he was invited by Mattel to stage a real-life Barbie house in Malibu. 

“The most important lesson my parents taught me is that banality is the enemy”

It is driven by that very mindset, laughing in the face of boring, that Adler carefully orchestrates every move as he stages venues and markets his collections right around the globe. From deep-buttoned sofas and blue cabochon-capped consoles to delightful dinnerware and the kind of well-chosen host gifts “that guarantee an invite back”, no area escapes his creative attention. He loves peppering his conversations with a smattering of French, employing words such as soirée or other bons mots. “I am a total Francophile. In non-pandemic times, I try to get myself to France at least once a year to soak up the culture, the antiques, and the pastries.” On opening his first UK-based store back in 2012, he already harboured a much bigger dream – that of conquering the European market. “From there, showing at Maison&Objet Paris was a no-brainer. It was a major accomplishment – showing at that trade show with all the other fab brands I’ve admired over the years was a real ‘I’ve made it’ moment.”
But the Hollywood-style success story only paints a partial picture of who Adler really is. It all began when a 12-year-old boy from New Jersey fell in love with a traditional craft: pottery. Like so many young Americans, he spent his vacation at Summer Camp, which is where the first seeds of creativity were planted. “It was fate”, says the designer, recalling the day when his passion for pottery struck. “I say that as a person who is rational and sceptical and doesn’t believe in New Age mishegas. But the exception is my pottery”, he admits. He spent the next few years playing with clay in the basement of his family home in southern New Jersey. “I was lucky enough to have parents who were extremely intelligent and creative. My mother worked at Vogue and my father was a lawyer who moonlighted as an artist. They taught me just about everything I know, the most important lesson being that banality is the enemy.” His Mum and Dad eventually waved him off to study semiotics and art history at Brown University, near Boston. In actual fact, he ended up spending most of his time in the building next door, the highly acclaimed Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), honing his pottery skills. On graduating, he secured a job in the film industry in New York, only to find it a huge disappointment. Promising himself he would never do a “normal” job again, he followed his heart and his passion for handcrafted wears by throwing himself into pottery. His (...) break was to come when Barneys department store officially became his first buyer. His vases are inspired by Dora Maar, Kiki de Montparnasse and Polly Maggoo. Everything else draws on a combination of hard work and pure talent, as with any American dream. “My journey was all about stumbling along as I went, and I think that’s the best way to roll,” says Adler. “The design and creativity lead the business. My only real interest and focus has been on making groovy stuff and groovy spaces.” Let’s Groove! 

By Caroline Tossan
Illustration ©Sarah Bouillaud