Seven Handle Designers That Make a Sculptural Case for a Cabinet Refresh

Home updates don’t always require major renovations. Sometimes it’s the smallest details that can transform a room.

Swapping out hardware is one of the simplest ways to add character. Sculptural forms and contrasting materials can often be the first things you notice on entering a room. A handful of local makers and curators specialise in jewellery-like accents for cupboards and doors. Here are seven to know. 

Lo & Co

South Australian Lo & Co is a go-to for contemporary hardware. Its expansive range spans materials, finishes and forms, with influences from age-old architecture and design references. Case in point: the Orbe collection draws from antique bobbin furniture legs, while Prism references the sharp geometry of cut jewels and brutalist cues.

Its latest collection, Al Dente, is a collaboration with celebrated interior designer Tali Roth. Named after the cooking style, the collection riffs on different pasta shapes. Handles, knobs and pulls curve and fold like sheets of lasagna, orecchiette, campanelle and stelline, the tiny star-shaped variety. The result is a range of polished and aged bronze, nickel and brass hardware that’s  “sophisticated but not too serious,” Roth says.

Bankston

Bankston treats levers and pulls as design objects in their own right, often teaming up with architects and studios to push the category forward. Its latest collaboration, with Yasmine Ghoniem of Sydney design studio YSG, is among its most expressive yet.

Capsule collection The Streaks layers striped timbers – ash with blackbutt, walnut with red cedar – into bold banded patterns punctuated with patinated bronze. The silhouettes are playful, from star-shaped knobs to crescent-inspired fixtures, with names as spirited as the designs themselves: Kooky Streaker or Narcissist Cupboard Knob, to name a couple. Each design immediately draws the eye.

Emily Gillis

Interior designer Emily Gillis usually works at the scale of whole homes, but her collaboration with sculptor and furniture maker Zachary Frankel distilled that vision into something much smaller: hardware. Together, they created a whimsical series of “breakfast handles” – flaky croissants and soft-boiled eggs cast in bronze at a family-run Melbourne foundry.

Pieces begin as timber models before being hand-poured in sand moulds. Finished in distressed, blackened or natural bronze, they feel less like standard fittings and more like witty ornamental accents for doors, drawers and cabinets.

Studio Henry Wilson

Sydney designer Henry Wilson has a knack for letting materials speak. Since founding his studio in 2012, he’s built a body of work spanning furniture, lighting and hardware – always with a focus on utility, longevity and craft. Like all of Wilson’s designs, each handle embraces the art of handmaking and the imperfections that come with it.

There’s the ’60s ski chalet-inspired handle with its broad flat face; the versatile ADT and Brute handles made for cabinetry, sliding doors and sash windows; and the Palais handle designed for lever doors. All are sand-cast in small batches, so no two pieces are identical. Subtle ripples, pitting and surface variations give each handle character, while the brass and aluminium finishes lightly oxidise into a lived-in patina.

ABI Interiors

Queensland-based ABI Interiors was born out of a desire for more colourful accents to dot around the home. Its hardware is crafted from materials like travertine, marble, concrete and solid brass. 

Each collection has a distinct personality. Pedra knobs and pulls showcase the veining of natural stone. Atelis scales up the texture in cast concrete. Ziggy’s slim brass handles favour a playful, curved profile. You’ll find pieces for indoors and outdoors, with minimalist and maximalist aesthetics alike.

Trouthouse

Slow design is central to Trouthouse. Alongside architectural projects, the husband-and-wife duo behind the label handmake to order a series of zigzag-shaped pieces, including mirrors, floating shelves, incense burners and handles.

Chunky and sculptural, the stepped profile of the brand’s hardware works for single cupboards or as a repeated rhythm across kitchens and wardrobes. Each design can be customised in shining gum or recycled blackwood, offering either warm honey or deep cocoa tones, and in varied lengths and widths.

Spiggy

Spiggy curates artisanal hardware from around the world, often sourcing designs by leading international architects and designers and bringing them to local shores. Its collections are made up of jewellery-like fixtures that elevate a space beyond the furniture that fills it.

One standout is Spaces Within, designed in Sweden and handmade by artisans in Florence. It’s the work of Nadja Bari, who brings her fashion background from Chanel and Toteme, and award-winning designer Karin Wallenbeck. The 10-piece range shows off materials such as amber or dark brass and polished brass or nickel. Our personal favourites include the antique-inspired Prim pull, which resembles a bow, and the concave Tender knob with its elegant silhouette.

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