If you're looking to take your hygge out of Copenhagen and into the mean streets of New York, look no further than the recent collaboration between Danish Furniture brand BoConcept and Mercedes-Benz operated smart. We first saw the smart Fortwo BoConcept signature style car a month ago, during its European debut as a brand ambassador vehicle at the 2013 Geneva Auto Show. The car is now joined by its domestic counterpart: the Smartville furniture and accessory collection.
We had the chance to sit down with Head of Marketing Communications & Brand Management smart Michael Schaller, BoConcept's Collections and Visuals Director, Claus Ditlev Jensen, and General Manager of smart USA, Tracey Matura, to get some insight into designing a major corporate collaboration.
Core77: Tell us about the origin of the collaboration, was smart itching to design a sofa? Had BoConcept been waiting for a chance to get into automotive design?
Claus Ditlev Jensen: Two and a half years ago, the agency for smart approached BoConcept because we have experience as the urban brand for interiors, and smart represents the urban brand for automotives. When we saw the initial presentation and heard about the ideas, we could only agree that it sounded like a fantastic idea.
We have the same mindset—[we both deal with serving] the customer in a functional way, to be cool, to have the right thing at the right time and also the vision about quality. When you buy our products you will be happy.
When we were together the first time, we were saying, "Okay, but what can we get from it?" That's what we were thinking at BoConcept and I'm sure they did the same at smart, thinking how smart are they at BoConcept? How can they match what we are thinking?
Michael Schaller: It was less that we had been searching for a corporate partner and more that we knew the same people and they said, "Hey, we know both of you and you have so much in common, you should meet"—that was how we had the initial meeting. It was very organic because we had so many similarities. We didn't have any difficulty making the brands fit to each other. It was more or less by accident that we were connected.
Are there plans for expansion of the line? Will we see more furniture pieces, maybe a storage line for our small urban spaces?
Jensen: Well we can't say anything about future collaborations. But [our design teams] have a great relationship and if you have a great relationship—you don't dump it.
 |  |