Shagreen Crib

Family is what brought Kifu Augousti into the world of furniture design. The daughter of celebrated designers Ria and Yiouri Augousti, Kifu has a bold, quirky style that is fiercely independent. Her exquisite handmade tables, seating and decorative objects — which typically feature pronounced geometrical forms and exotic inlays — set Augousti apart as an up-and-coming creator of modern furnishings made in the Art Deco tradition.

Augousti embarked on her creative career early. After attending Brown University, she followed in her parents' footsteps, carving out her own reputation as a design powerhouse.

While it’s often likened to her parents’ work, Kifu Augousti’s designs have a look that is distinctively their own. Offbeat materials, sinuous curves and wild patterns have become hallmarks of the designer’s furniture. In the workshop of her parent's design firm, R & Y Augousti, Kifu experimented with semi-precious stones, shells and other interesting materials as a child. Her parents gained fame for bringing shagreen — leather made from shark or stingray hide —  back into fashion. (It reemerged as a luxe material among designers and decorators in 2017.)

Popular in the 1930s, this versatile material had fallen out of vogue over time. The Augoustis revived it for use in their own work, and Kifu Augousti continues to celebrate it, incorporating shagreen into her signature styles that are on offer at her Kifu Paris shop in Paris as well as in her New York City showroom. She favors bold, nature-inspired prints and silhouettes, and in many of her handmade benches, coffee tables, daybeds and other large pieces, an integration of shagreen blends wonderfully with the structures’ bold bronze frames or bases. In her smaller boxes, baskets and vases, stylish combinations of shagreen, shell inlays and decorative knobs with semi-precious stones are merged to create a sumptuous, unconventional look that is utterly unique.

Find Kifu Augousti seating, tables and decorative objects on 1stDibs.

When you’re shopping for antique, new and vintage children’s furniture, you’ll want your choices to fit nicely within the decor scheme of the rest of your home. But you’ll also want to create an alluring and inspirational space for your children to feel relaxed and encouraged creatively. Indeed, a child’s room can be simultaneously stylish and playful — the ideal environment for children.

Understandably, beds were the first piece of furniture designed for young children. In Ancient Egypt, children’s beds were scaled-down versions of adult beds. They were intended to be a logical size for a child and low enough to the ground so that they could climb in by themselves.

Historians discovered early high chairs in Ancient Greece. In the 6th century B.C., a child’s training potty might have also been used as a high chair, while archaeologists on a dig discovered a terracotta high chair in a marketplace in Athens. By the Renaissance period, children’s bookshelves were popular with upper-class families who had disposable income and the desire to beautify all areas of the home. The original purpose was to organize school books, but shelves eventually became integral to children’s rooms of the era.

In the early 20th century, Italian physician Maria Montessori changed the way designers thought about children’s furniture. She wrote that it was important for children to have a safe environment of their own that they could easily navigate. Montessori believed that children’s furniture should be sized for them but that it should also be made of light, durable materials so that it’s easy for them to carry if needed.

Today’s widely known mid-century modern furniture designers took interest in the idea that young children should have well-crafted furniture of their own. You can find vintage mid-century modern children’s furniture created by the likes of Harry Bertoia, Charles and Ray Eames and Alvar Aalto. Contemporary industrial designer and architect Philippe Starck is also known for having introduced versions of his furniture that were geared toward children, especially his seating and storage solutions.

It’s never too early for good design. Decorating a child’s room offers the opportunity to combine elevated furnishings and a youthful spirit and can result in spaces that are at once elegant and whimsical. On 1stDibs, find design ideas for children’s rooms as well as a variety of new, antique and vintage children’s furniture today.