Our visionary designer-in-chief, David Netto

Maclaren is proud to partner with David Netto, best known as "the father of modern baby." A world-renowned American interior designer and architectural historian, David is known for his eclectic style and propensity for modern minimalism. David's design philosophy focuses on the creation of passionate and artistic works that reflect the needs and lifestyles of people with discriminating tastes.  He was named one of House Beautiful's "Top 100 designers in America" three years in a row and has been published in Vogue, Elle Decor, House & Garden, Dwell, Interior Design, House & Home and House Beautiful.

David Netto in his words

I was New York born and raised until I moved to LA to be with my young daughter Kate, whose mother is the actress Ione Skye. I am a furniture, interiors, and product designer who has worked with equal interest in all of those categories since before Diddy was called Puffy.

I am probably best known as “the father of modern baby”--or so Giggle’s website calls me--because of NettoCollection, which pioneered stylish modernist nursery furniture and the visually groundbreaking catalogs which presented it beginning in 2003.

Before that I had had some success as an interior designer, after I left the architecture school at Harvard in 1997 to pursue that profession. I worked for Bunny Williams and Nasser Nakib doing residential architectural design and decoration before going out on my own in 2000. Like many decorators, as soon as I had a taste of the travails of running my own business I dreamed of making a product instead of just providing a service, and when I became a father in 2001 I noticed the glaring absence of style in that essential but neglected category of children’s furniture. In the early 2000’s appreciation for good design was on the rise everywhere, but the nursery was the one room that seemed to have been left out.

NettoCollection was launched to remedy this situation and it spearheaded a movement for better and younger design in baby which it is fair to say has changed the whole industry. And thanks to the help and support of my business partner and childhood friend Claude Arpels, I did get to make a product.

The acquisition of NettoCollection by Maclaren in 2009 was one of the real high moments of my career: here was one of the first cases of a top level industry leader in baby investing in one of the newest. I am thrilled to continue designing for Maclaren Nursery, and this year will mark the rollout of a number of new products which NettoCollection, as an independent, would never have had the resources to launch.

My wife Elizabeth, my two daughters and I now live in the Silver Lake section of Los Angeles, in a 1959 house by the incomparable modernist architect Richard Neutra. I no longer have to take a plane to NY every 12 days, I take great pleasure designing for Maclaren, write a bit, and enjoy every minute of being a New Yorker living in California.

I hope you like our furniture even more knowing a little bit about how it came to be.

My Design Philosophy

“One of the most difficult things to achieve is an interesting plainness” Mies van de Rohe

“I don’t care how you serve the dinner—serve it backwards if you like—but for goodness sake, do something weird” Elsa Maxwell

“Always, always--a touch of the exotic” Jacques Grange

“It doesn’t matter what else you do if you fail your family” Jacqueline Kennedy

Permit my presumptuousness in letting some of my heroes of design speak up for me. I have at one time or another thought, or agreed with, all of these things, and I think if you are going to talk about your design philosophy one of the first things you should do is give credit to where you learned it. I have always been interested in history, and the role of personalities in design--people who really know about and care about style, who I look up to--has been a major source of inspiration and education for me. Particularly as a decorator but no less as a furniture designer.

In fact, taking the best of that knowledge and applying it to a category it has never really touched before like children’s furniture is what NettoCollection has been all about.

I think you should do what is appropriate, but never cut back on the fantasy. I think almost all well-designed objects should perform several functions. I think that quality of build and finish should be allowed to speak for itself through simplicity of form. A major part of my design philosophy is the certainty that nothing is unworthy of good design. Look at Giacommetti or a Shaker auction catalog if you don’t think that’s true. The humility of small objects can only add to them in the eyes of a good designer.

If I can encapsulate my design mission, it would be to:

Design baby furniture with uncompromising modern style

Keep furniture out of landfills

Support artists and artisans who take pride in their craft

Offer enduring designs you’ll want to keep around

Add intelligent and useful details whenever possible

Balance charming and chic with cozy and luxe

Remind you which is the most important room in the house

I think I have kept faith to these ideas over the years and that Maclaren feels the same way. At the time that I drew this up, one of the things I found most depressing about the children’s furniture  market was that almost everything was disposable—built so cheaply it was expected to be thrown away, and so ugly you didn’t care.

If I want to emphasize any part of our mission I feel even more strongly about today, it is that my design is about keeping these essential pieces of furniture, which the arrival of a child determines you must buy, out of landfills. I refuse to tolerate the “finite usability” of pieces such as a crib or changing table, which was a convention of the industry before we entered it.

This is both  an environmental and economic priority. We are still one of the only companies that defines true eco-friendliness not just through source materials, but by the resulting product’s non-disposability. It is part of the design of our furniture, it is built into the cost of our furniture, it is the major point of our furniture, and I am proud of that.

 Why our cribs are safe

The main reason our cribs are so safe is the fixed side rails. We studied crib design for a long time before we started manufacturing, and it was obvious right away that most safety issues arose from drop side rails. This feature, perceived as a convenience, compromises safety in crib construction and use to a degree which is not  worthwhile.

We have never made a drop-side crib and it never will.

Another reason our cribs are so safe is the solidity of their construction. Part of our intent was to turn the crib into an important piece of furniture, beautiful to look at and useable as a toddler bed and a sofa. This means the quality of hardware we use and the stiffness required when the rails are connected to the end pieces are is well above the standard typical for this industry.

Netto Collection cribs are designed intentionally to be solid and substantial, and to withstand multiple assemblies over time.

To be perfectly honest, the third reason is—the price. Our cribs are expensive--for a crib, but not for a piece of really good furniture, which is what they also are. The money is all there in the construction and finishes, and the simple truth is that it is more expensive to build furniture to our standards than those of a company making something which is designed to be thrown away.