Mette Hay

How HAY Brought the Best of Design to Every Home

By Bonnie Langedijk

As the co-founder of the company Danish design giant HAY and Creative Director of HAY Accessories, Mette Hay continuously creates products that elevate the modest moments of everyday life. In a design industry that often still favors exclusivity, HAY has become one of the most desirable brands of our time through the belief that good design is everyone’s right. Since its launch in 2002, HAY’s designs have quickly become the objects of choice with which people fill their everyday lives – loved by industry insiders as well as those who appreciate great design. You’ll often spot the brand’s couches, toasters and lights across the homes of creatives, the interiors of the best restaurants and hotels to the headquarters of well known companies. With stores across the world – from Sydney to Oslo and Seoul to Rotterdam – HAY has grown into a global brand without losing sight of its founding principles. 

Operating at the intersection of art, architecture and fashion, HAY blurs the lines between creative disciplines. And that’s exactly what makes the company special. Through collaborating with the best designers and creatives of our time, founders Mette and Rolf Hay have created a new blueprint for what a design company could look like, building a brand that consistently has its finger on the pulse of contemporary culture while making its products accessible to a wide audience. From the tableware collection made in collaboration with chef Laila Gohar, to the multiple collection designed by Belgian designer duo Muller van Severen and most recently pairing Liberty’s distinctive floral print with Inga Sempé’s Matin shade. It’s proof that there is such a thing as being cool and kind. 

Bonnie: Taste is a word that often comes up when talking about style and design. What are your thoughts about good versus bad taste? And how do you relate to the word taste?

Mette: Taste is very individual and has many facets. No one really has the authority to claim what good or bad taste is. Sometimes I wonder about how I acquired my taste – however it’s defined – and how it can be more similar to someone from Switzerland, Belgium, or the US, than to my neighbor whom I grew up alongside. Many years ago, I was at an exhibition in Paris, and I met a friend there. I didn't know her that well at the time, but we were kind of in the same business. We were chatting about what we had seen that day, and we both took out our phones and took pictures of almost the exact same things. How does that happen exactly?

“Taste is very INDIVIDUAL and has many facets. No one really has the authority to claim what good or bad taste is.”

Some people seem to have the same or similar filters in terms of what they gravitate towards. 

Mette: In the industry I work in, I think contemporaries – in fashion, art, architecture, and design – have always seemed to have shared a similar consciousness, which in turn affects what is made in the world. Be it a dress, artwork, or a chair. And, while of course there are certain conditions that give way to why we like what we like, I find it fascinating that certain people are drawn to the same things, objects, and materials across the globe, independently from one another. This was made very clear to Rolf and me during the Covid pandemic when we were limited to on-screen correspondences with our collaborators. During this time, we spent a lot of time talking to Muller Van Severen. But despite the distance, coming from different cultures, and only having met each other in person a number of times, it was as if we were in sync with one another. Whether we spoke about products, forms, or color, I felt we shared a similar design consciousness. 

When you find that synergy within taste or finding appreciation for similar things, it’s similar to speaking the same language.

Mette: My taste is what helps me curate a visual language for HAY’s Accessories collection. But ask me what the essence of my taste is, and I wouldn’t be able to pin it down. When you talk about disciplines like math or science the reasons why people excel tend to be more tangible, but when it comes to design that sensibility is harder to describe or capture. 

The difficult thing with taste is that it can't be wrong or right, it can't be measured. There’s this forever question of what makes something good design? Or what defines bad taste? 

Mette: It makes me happy to go to a restaurant or to a friend's house where there's a nice tablecloth, nice glasses or nice knives. Design is a big part of my life. It's my hobby, it's my work. It's something that fills me up with energy, like being with people. But it's not that everything has to be my taste. I find it inspiring to step into worlds or communities with tastes that differ from my own. I like it when you can see that people have chosen a specific object because they love it, over just purchasing something because it was an easy buy at the supermarket. I also love seeing a young student’s first apartment where the person has created a nice home with what’s available to them. It’s as interesting as visiting a home that’s been designed with intention for a specific person.

That's also kind of where you started with HAY, right? To make the designs from the designers you loved more accessible and affordable.

Mette: Rolf and I met while working for Gubi. At the time, they were the agents for Cappellini in Copenhagen. There was this chair I loved that Jasper Morrison designed. I was 20 years old at the time, and I desperately wanted that armchair but I couldn't afford it, even with my employee discount. Rolf and I felt like there was a big gap in the market between IKEA and some of the more traditional, high-end companies like Cappellini, B&B and Fritz Hansen in Denmark. We felt that there was an opportunity to create something for people who appreciated design, where they could buy something in their twenties and live with it for many years instead of only having the chance to buy a piece by Arne Jacobsen or an Eames Chair when they turned 50. The whole vision for HAY was to create affordable, high quality objects with the best designers in the world. Today, we call this sustainability but we have always tried to think about making products that people would live with for a long time. 

You make different decisions when you know you’re buying something for the long-term. Another element that I think plays into it all is the shopping experience. Luxury design stores can often feel quite cold, or unwelcoming and there’s often nothing you can afford in a store like that. While when you go to HAY House, for example, in Copenhagen you can also buy pens or a notebook. It’s such a nice gateway into design.

Mette: I'm so happy that you appreciate it, because it's something that has been important to us from the day we opened our first store. When we started out, a lot of the other furniture companies had big houses outside the cities. Rolf and I wanted to be in the city center to be close to the customers. We also knew that as a furniture company – if you want to have clients coming in frequently – you need to show them something new every time. And that’s what we tried to do with the accessories. I grew up in a design store. My parents opened the store when I was 13 years old. My mom bought all the accessories and my father focused on the lighting and the furniture. My mother always bought small sweet objects that could work as a gift, or for children. I think I took that with me into HAY.

It's like a little souvenir.

Mette: Exactly. I felt at that time that to walk into a furniture store, you almost needed to dress nicely, or you might feel you couldn’t sit on sofas. We really wanted to open a warm place where everybody felt welcome, and where people from all generations could buy something – be it a toothbrush or a sofa. At HAY, our customers are at the forefront of our culture, and we do our best to take care of them no matter what they might buy. We put equally as much care and attention into developing accessories as to furniture and lighting to ensure that our brand is as democratic as possible. This has been a core philosophy for HAY since its founding.  

There seems to be this belief that for consumers to feel like something is luxurious there needs to be some sort of exclusivity or distance but that’s such an outdated philosophy. There's so much choice now and consumers are looking to connect with you as a brand. What's your personality? What are you, beyond the product you sell? It's not easy to strike that balance between creating design that's valued for its quality and how it's put together, but then also creating an environment you actually want to spend time in.

Mette: When my parents opened their store, they traveled to find new objects and they could create this narrative around the objects they sourced. You used to be able to come back with objects that your clients had never seen before. Today, our employees at HAY House often meet with clients who know more about design than they do. Because of The Internet, the client today is so aware of what they want, what’s available and the qualities. There’s this mutual respect and common interest between the customer and salesperson that’s very unique. 

As it’s such an integral part of HAY as a business, I want to touch on collaboration. It has become such a hype-y thing to do, but you were quite early to it. I'm assuming the process of how you select who you work with is more intuitive than practical? 

Mette: You are spot on. It's similar to what we talked about when it comes to taste. It's just something that happens. The first big collaboration we did was with IKEA. Rolf and I respect IKEA for many reasons. Ingvar Kampradhe has taught people globally about design. They’ve also given young people the possibility to get a really good bed at a very low price, you know? When we designed that collection, we didn’t just want to recreate HAY products. We really thought about what an IKEA client is interested in, and the possibilities within their production abilities. We were also the first brand that had the chance to change the look of the IKEA bag, which I think is the most iconic bag in the world.

I would agree. What do you think is the value of collaboration?

Mette: Collaborations are something that most of my time is spent on at the moment. It enables us to explore new areas and after 20 years of doing the same kind of job, it keeps me on the beat in a way. It's exciting to meet new people and to face new challenges. We learn something new every time. In general, it needs to make sense but at the same time it needs to be a little bit unexpected. The two brands have to bring good things together, you know?

You also get to create that bridge between different creative practices. From working with a chef, to an artist to a photographer. It’s easier to develop new ideas when you work with people outside of your own realm.

Mette: Sometimes things also just happen organically, like with Laila Gohar for example. We asked her to do the catering for our clients in Milan, but we had to cancel it because of Covid. We had planned this big thing where everyday at three o'clock in our exhibition, people could come and eat cake. We had this image on our mood board of this eight meter long tiramisu that we wanted to serve. I was so sad when we had to cancel it because I really enjoyed working with Laila. When I visited her studio for the first time, I loved her spoons and we had many conversations about found objects around the world. When I asked her to create a collection together, Laila just said: “Oh, no, no. I'm not a designer. You can’t ask me to do so.” And I said, “But let us help you. All the things where you don't feel like you are good enough, maybe we are.” And then we just did it. I loved showing Laila that she was capable of doing it. I think it was also a bit of the starting point of her own brand, Gohar World. And we’re still really good friends today.

A good collaboration works both ways, and creates value for both parties, right? What’s the thing you’re most proud of since you started HAY?

Mette: The culture of our company is by far what Rolf and I are most proud of when we think about HAY today. There are so many clever, sweet, humble, hardworking, cool people working at the company. During those first years when Rolf and I talked about the heart of the company the focus was on the products we created. Since then, we have been very aware of how the culture within HAY is the thing that makes it all happen. When I'm an old lady looking back at my life, I have to say that I will be more proud of the culture at HAY than the products.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.  

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