Sarah Ellison has a thing for making It girl furniture. Her seating has turned heads since she started her brand, Ellison Studios, in 2017. First up was the Muse sofa, a couch that was quickly everywhere after its launch: on the grid, in homes, and an easy favorite of editors like AD contributor Sydney Gore and designers like the Brownstone Boys. Its follow-up, the carved-out Float sofa (which appeared in Aurora James’s Laurel Canyon cottage), had a similarly zeitgeisty, ‘70s-inspired silhouette.
Her latest contribution to the design world is a conversation pit-worthy sofa called The Poet, made in collaboration with celebrity-beloved designer Tiffany Howell of LA-based studio Night Palm. The firm has designed glamorous spaces for the likes of Laura Harrier, Elaine Welteroth, Mara Brock Ali, Doechii, and Alicia Keys in the past.
Like Ellison, Howell shares a fondness for the moody, plush textures of the ‘70s (recent projects include this amber-washed bachelor pad and this smoky, wood-paneled living room in Silver Lake), so it’s not hard to imagine the Poet occupying one of those spaces—perhaps as the centerpiece to a book-laden living room or a sun-soaked parlor. “Tiffany and I have always bonded over the idea of design being a tool for storytelling,” muses CEO and founder of Ellison Studios Leigh Mckeown. “The Poet is a design dialogue between past and present.”
Specifically, the sofa draws inspiration from the deep-seated conversation pits of the disco era, married with the velveteen drama of the ‘80s, all in one sculptural shape that feels both contemporary and gestural. “Those decades showed me how a curve could be more than design. It could be a mood, a gesture, an embrace,” says Howell.
Poet Sofa by ELLISON STUDIOS
The sofa is available in three warm colorways: boucle camel, a beige velvet, and a soft green velvet. On account of its subtly asymmetrical frame, it comes in left or right configurations to suit the angles of any given space. “Design, for us, is never just form and function, it’s narrative. Poet is the embodiment of that,” says Mckeown.
The sofa is available to shop at Design Within Reach.