This Cabinet Has Something to Say

For Doshi Levien, every object starts with curiosity — and ends in conversation

- MALLIKA ADVANI

The first thing Jonathan and I think about," says Nipa Doshi over a Google Meet split between a rainy Mumbai afternoon and a bright British morning, “is what feeling we want an object, or collection, to evoke.” At home in London, surrounded by furniture she and her husband Jonathan Levien have created through their studio, Doshi Levien, she adds, “We never make anything without love or the intention to add value. And sometimes that takes a year, even two, to develop, produce, and get just right.” Completing her thought, Jonathan jumps in: “They have to sing by the time they're created. And they have to speak to you.”

Together, through Doshi Levien, the studio they co-founded in 2000, Nipa and Jonathan bring a creatively curious dialogue to design, drawing on cultural observations, personal memory and materiality, to rethink how objects live with us — and how we live with them. With clients like Moroso, B&B Italia, and Kvadrat, the duo moves deliberately, always starting with a conversation about how we live, what we value, and whether a piece will still resonate years from now.