Big-box furniture stores doing high-profile collabs has long been one of the surest bets for those who yearn for a collection of beautiful things by internationally renowned designers — but who can’t necessarily afford the luxury price tags that typically accompany such items. CB2 has long been at the top of our list when it comes to products with a point of view, hand-picking many designers we know and love — from Kara Mann to Luam Melake to Studio Anansi and Farrah Sit — to offer collections at accessible price points, bringing the designers’ varied global design perspectives within reach of a much broader audience. Now, CB2 has introduced its 2024 Designer Collective, a showcase of nearly two dozen designers and independent studios, through whom the brand is able to introduce multiple design styles from around the world— giving design fans more options to find pieces that align with their aesthetic and creating a variety in perspectives that enables the range as a whole to feel fresh and current. We spoke to three members of the Designer Collective — interior designer Kara Mann, lighting designer Farrah Sit, and the Barcelona-based Mermelada Estudio — about what this collaboration means to their practice, and how their individual approaches to design each bring something unique to the brand. Kara Mann Chicago-based Kara Mann’s first collection for CB2, which launched back in 2020, was based on her 1980s-era childhood bedroom, which she designed in high school using primarily furniture from sister brand Crate & Barrel. For CB2, she adapted her black-and-white palette of the past into a series of statement products — featuring elements like stripes, polka dots, ruffles, and frosted glass — that still managed to blend easily with most interiors. Her sophomore collection took a different turn, replacing youthful whimsy with a more grown-up approach that she describes as better suited to a casual weekend house. “I wanted people to feel like the pieces were just comfortable to fit casually into life and would allow life to happen around all of them,” she says, adding that the shift also reflected her personal maturity over time. Mann attributes her signature blend of edgy casual meets refined elegance to her Midwestern roots. Take her new Plinth sofa, which is typified by horizontal lines that carry through the continuous back and seat cushions as well as the base, for a monolithic look that’s softened by …

Kara Mann
Chicago-based Kara Mann’s first collection for CB2, which launched back in 2020, was based on her 1980s-era childhood bedroom, which she designed in high school using primarily furniture from sister brand Crate & Barrel. For CB2, she adapted her black-and-white palette of the past into a series of statement products — featuring elements like stripes, polka dots, ruffles, and frosted glass — that still managed to blend easily with most interiors.

Her sophomore collection took a different turn, replacing youthful whimsy with a more grown-up approach that she describes as better suited to a casual weekend house. “I wanted people to feel like the pieces were just comfortable to fit casually into life and would allow life to happen around all of them,” she says, adding that the shift also reflected her personal maturity over time. Mann attributes her signature blend of edgy casual meets refined elegance to her Midwestern roots. Take her new Plinth sofa, which is typified by horizontal lines that carry through the continuous back and seat cushions as well as the base, for a monolithic look that’s softened by textured fabric.

An ongoing collaboration is made even easier now that her studio is located just down the street from the CB2 offices, so she can easily visit to check on samples and prototypes — a key part of the process, she notes. As a designer, it’s been important for Mann to “understand the transition between the luxury market that I’m in right now, and how to create for a mass market” through working with an international brand. “To be able to share my knowledge in a way that reaches people that I could never reach is amazing.”

Farrah Sit
Farrah Sit’s sculptural lighting and furniture designs are perpetually in high demand, but due to the craftsmanship involved in their production, they’re typically made in limited runs or as one-offs, and they carry significant costs. “I’ve created custom chandeliers for clients and really large-scale installation pieces. But there’s always been a request for more accessible versions of my work,” says the New York–based designer. Her collaboration with CB2 allows Sit to retain the same expressive shapes and design quality, but use batch production that makes each piece much more affordable.

The designer cut her teeth at Calvin Klein before launching her own studio, and Sit still uses fashion-themed mood boards to influence and inform her product collections. For her first CB2 Designer Collective range, she wholly over-delivered and presented more than 30 ideas to the team. To her surprise, the majority were picked up and put into production. Of her designs currently available through CB2 — many of which are named after planets and zodiac signs — Sit highlights the Venus series as a favorite. This collection of lamps revolves around the balance between a resin or marble wedge base, and a delicate arcing line that connects a ball set into the stone at one end to a cloche-shaped shade at the other — a little bit Castiglioni, a little bit Grace Jones.