For more than three decades, Dutch designer and Moooi cofounder Marcel Wanders has built a career around challenging convention. Ahead of his return to the U.S. for a conversation at BDNY presented in partnership with ICFF, Wanders talks risk, creativity, and the responsibility of design.
The Knitty lounge chair by Nika Zupanc for Moooi
You were kicked out of design school early in your career. How did that experience shape you?
Marcel Wanders: I didn’t have a talent for design as it was then. Back then, design was taught as a strategy, something that if you’d follow a certain path, you will get to good products. And for me, I felt design was culture. I felt it was something that would develop over time and that would have an individual aspect, not just an objective way to be realized. When they kicked me out, I thought, ‘No, I will do this. This is what I’m going to do.’ It gave me a lot of certainty in a way.
Your work often pushes boundaries. How do you think about risk in design?
MW: In design, safe is risky. If you want to do a hotel and you decide the way this hotel is going to be valuable for people is through design, then safe is risky. To do something special is your only chance.
What keeps you creatively fulfilled?
MW: I’m so excited about what we’re doing. I’m so excited about the opportunity that my culture gives me. I wake up on Monday morning, take a pencil, scribble some things on a piece of paper. Maybe I have an idea, maybe not, maybe I have it tomorrow. That opportunity, which is a great opportunity, also comes with a great responsibility.
What role does design play in moving culture forward?
MW: Design is a wonderful source of inspiration for people. It is a fantastic way to communicate about how our lives evolve and who we are and who we will become, and you can express that in such beautiful ways. The world has to move. We are demanding it. And in that conversation, design plays an important role because design is founded in philosophy, but it’s expressed in daily life. And it’s important because it reaches everyone.
Hear more from Wanders at BDNY 2026:
“The Man Behind the Practice: One-on-One with Marcel Wanders”
Sunday, November 8th | 12:30 PM | BD Mainstage