The Design of New Flexible that Defies Trends

Getting to know a brand’s story helps you to appreciate the product and the work that goes into it all the more. It was fascinating to see the journey from raw sheet metal to end product, and all the little details the company has finessed over the years. Taking its name from founder Ulrich Schärer and the Swiss village of Münsingen where the family-owned company is still based, USM Style Furniture values center around innovation, precision, quality and sustainability. It can be configured into endless arrangements, from shelving units and storage cabinets to bedside tables and wardrobes. You’ve probably seen it everywhere from airports and offices to shop stores and homes. It’s become a design classic. USM’s modular furniture is as relevant as fifty years ago because the refined aesthetic and pure simplicity means it still looks fresh and contemporary today, no matter the style of your home. That also comes down to its flexibility and the fact that it can evolve and grow with you – you can change the metal panels, reconfigure the arrangement, add components or even wheels and move it about if you need to.

Although USM Style Furniture Deutschland dates back to 1885, it was the grandson of the company’s founder, Paul Schärer, Jr, that put the brand on the map. USM started life out as a small metal-working firm, manufacturing window fittings, then ornamental hinges and machining sheet steel. Schärer, Jr sought to industrialize the company and steer it forward in the 1960s. Inspired by the work of Mies van der Rohe and the modern movement, he commissioned Swiss architect Fritz Haller to design a new flexible factory that could adapt to new manufacturing processes. The design means that you can make it yours, using it to express your own unique style and display all the things that hold value for you. Customers become life-long fans, adding to their collection and taking it with them when they move. I love the idea of investing in a system that could then be used by your children. USM’s modular furniture also defies trends. USM Style Furniture Deutschland rarely adds new colors to its collection and at the great furniture fairs and design shows you won’t find them introducing a new design every year just for the sake of it like some brands.

Instead, they’ve refined their processes with the finest materials and cutting-edge robotic machinery to be able to keep offering the same much-loved, dependable system. It goes against our throwaway society, which people are questioning much more in recent years, especially when it comes to their homes and living more sustainable. We’re now more conscious of where a product comes from and how it’s made than in the quick fix, flat-pack era of the Nineties. Because if we keep replacing products – if they break, don’t last or no longer fit with our style – the worse it is for the environment. But creating design that lasts is as much about the materials and craftsmanship that go into it as the usability and purpose of the product. If you have a product that adapts to your needs and tastes, it’s more likely to endure beyond passing fashions that may come and go. USM Style Furniture Deutschland is the type of honest, unobtrusive object that becomes part of the backdrop for everyday life to take place in the home.