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Meet the finalists of the Artistry & Craft Awards  2025

20 November 2024 • Written by Lucy Dunn

BOAT International is proud to reveal the finalists of the Artistry & Craft Awards 2025, in association with Parkway England, which celebrate the behind-the-scenes artisans who spend countless hours creating the finer details on board.

The three awards - Excellence in Craftsmanship, Outstanding Collaborative Creation and Emerging Artisan of the Year - showcase the unsung heroes of yacht design. The judges were looking for exceptional objects or finishes that take these vessels to another level of luxury, whether using time-honoured skills such as marquetry and leatherwork, or new techniques that push the boundaries of sustainability, technology and materials.

This year, the esteemed judging panel included Jay Ruston, CEO of Parkway England; art dealer and curator Adrian Sassoon; Deborah Pocock LVO, CEO of Qest (Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust); Andrew Winch of Winch Design; Lay Koon Tan, co-founder of Nature Squared; and chairman Christopher Whale, group creative director of BOAT International. Judges recused themselves from the judging process when it came to judging entries where they were the commissioning designer.

The winners of the Artistry & Craft Awards will be announced at the Superyacht Design Festival in Kitzbühel on 2-4 February 2025.

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After receiving and assessing the entries, the Artistry & Craft Awards judges shortlisted the top designs…

Excellence in Craftsmanship

This award recognises an object whose construction is, in the judges’ view, second to none. Whether it uses time-honoured skills such as marquetry and leatherwork, or new techniques that push the boundaries of sustainability, technology and materials, the object must be bespoke work created specifically for a new yacht. It can be created by an individual or a team.

Céline Alexandre

Object: Painted panels
Yacht: Kismet
Designer: Reymond Langton Design

Céline Sorigué, artistic director of Céline Alexandre, was commissioned by Reymond Langton Design to create custom-designed decorative panels for the yacht's beauty room. The brief was to create 'refined works with a feminine allure inspired by haute couture'.

The intricate work took over 400 hours to complete. Different painting styles and techniques were employed over a fabric support made from Majilite's Novasuede fabric. The design represents "a flight of ginkgo leaves"; these distinctly shaped leaves are celebrated symbols of hope, strength and resilience. The studio team used intricate layers of paint, varnish and metallic powder mixes to bring softness, elegance and refinement as well as depth to the panels. The resulting "trompe-l’oeil" effect was further enhanced by gold leaf engraving.

Eva Mechler

Object: Lounge chair
Yacht: Fox

Designer and master furniture maker Eva Mechler specialises in building sustainable pieces using wood offcuts. She collaborates with decking specialist WolzNautic, which works with a material called Tesumo – a natural wood alternative to teak developed in partnership with Lürssen. "We talked together about the fact that if you had a sustainable deck, you should also have sustainable furniture on that deck – it would be strange to have one and not the other," explained Mechler. "They told me about the wood they always have left over and we got the idea of doing something with it." 

The 'Fox' lounge chair started life with the design of a three-legged stool which was developed using a complex approach to jointing solid wood developed by Mechler. Determined to preserve traditional furniture-making skills, she then hand-crafted the chair directly from a full-scale pencil drawing. It took sixty workshop hours to complete. Some of the hand tools used in Mechler’s workshop are inherited from her grandfather.

Sophie Mallebranche

Object: Metal wall panels
Yacht: Kismet
Designer: Reymond Langton Design

Sophie Mallebranche, both an artist and a company renowned for woven metal materials, was commissioned to create a series of diptychs and quadriptychs for Kismet. This project, developed in collaboration with British studio Reymond Langton Design, led to the creation of doors and partitions adorned with a Grand Soleil motif, which became a central feature of the yacht’s interior design. The metal weave, the pattern of which was designed by Mallebranche, was used in several places such as passageways, the owner’s lobby, owner’s bathrooms and guest cabins. There were 22 patterns in total.

The weaving of the panels is achieved through a technique that blends tradition and innovation. The motif is woven before being thermo-bonded to a fire-resistant substrate. Each panel is then cut, adhering to strict safety and aesthetic standards.

Outstanding Collaborative Creation

LYKI Design

Object: Wall, door and cabinet panels
Yacht: Amoa
Designer: Tim Gosling and Winch Design

The “Desert Rose” artwork was conceived to elevate the design of the skylounge on board 70-metre Amoa. Spanning over 15 square metres, it adorns a wall, a low cabinet and the back of a sofa, forming a composition of intricate, three-dimensional marquetry. The "tiles" are uniquely irregular, featuring curved surfaces made of three distinct materials: white vellum, fabric and the signature “Desert Rose” design.

Inspired by the resilience and natural beauty of its namesake, the piece harmonises with its surroundings to enrich the atmosphere of the space. Materials such as limestone and liquid metal were carefully chosen to evoke the geological textures of desert roses, creating a striking interplay of visual and tactile elements that resonate with the skylounge’s refined aesthetic.

Sabina Fay Braxton

Object: Headboard
Yacht: Kismet
Designer: Reymond Langton Design

Sabina Fay Braxton describes her technique for this headboard in the master bedroom on board Kismet as "a hybrid of the medieval blocked gaufrage (embossing) technique, artistic painting and embroidery." She has evolved this over time, working for big fashion houses including Givenchy and Giorgio Armani. The brief by Reymond Langton Design was to create a baroque-style wall piece that would "appear and disappear" over a four-metre expanse of wall behind the bed in the master bedroom.

The piece started with a foundation of deep-pile velvet. A hand-carved motif was then crushed into the pile to create a multi-dimensional effect, which would convey the overall effect of an old plaster mural that has flaked over time. Superimposed over it came a trellis made of pearls and cords, which also faded in and out, creating a further sense of depth. "The effect is somewhat 'Turner-esque' in its overall feeling: the subject matter would be evoked and then vanish into a dust storm of fusing light," explained Fay Braxton. The piece took 10 weeks with three people working on it daily.

Silverlining

Object: Chinoiserie marquetry panels
Yacht: Kismet
Designer: Reymond Langton Design

The brief for these marquetry panels was to echo the elegance of traditional chinoiserie while meeting the functional demands of a marine environment. Installed in both the wardrobe and bathroom areas, these panels were to serve as a key focal point within the interior.

Silverlining Furniture designed 29 intricate panels, blending classic chinoiserie motifs, like cranes and flora, with modern marquetry techniques, and using materials like Dubai-gold metallised resin, satinwood and cracked black resin. The design aimed to convey "movement and tranquility", with the gold elements set against a deep black background for contrast.

The panels, covering 35 square metres, took 14 months to complete and involved precision marquetry work by skilled artisans, material experimentation and close collaboration with the yacht's interior team. The panels were engineered for durability, with lightweight, reinforced structures and custom lamination for curved surfaces.

Emerging Artisan of the Year

This award brings to light an artisan whose object has recently appeared, or will soon appear, on board a yacht for the first time, and who shows outstanding talent and promise.

Poppy Pawsey

Object: Games table
Yacht: Kismet
Designer: Reymond Langton Design

Poppy Pawsey joined Silverlining Furniture in February 2023 after a career-ending injury led to a medical discharge from the Royal Marines Military Band and a struggle with her mental health. Despite having no experience, she discovered a passion for marquetry and within 18 short months progressed from a trainee to a fully fledged marquetarian.

This games table project, with interchanging boards for backgammon and chess, was Pawsey's first solo project. She used five different veneers, including stained ripple sycamore, bird's eye maple, lacewood, satinwood and walnut burr, to decorate the table with a highly decorative butterfly and gingko leaf design. The process included programming the laser and selecting and staining the veneer, as well as laser cutting and assembling the gingko leaf table top onto a starburst motif. "I was immensely proud of the starburst and cutting into this for the inlay was a moment when I held my breath," Pawsey explained in her statement.

Sebastian Woirin

Object: Tasting sphere
Yacht: Alfa G

Sebastian worked as a bartender before he turned his talents to design. As a wine and spirits lover, he always had a problem with ice buckets: they create condensation and make tablecloths wet, plus there is a constant need to wipe the bottle - and that's before you factor in thermal shocks that are harmful to fine wines. 

Ten years ago, Woirin began to work up the perfect design and "develop a perfect accessory dedicated to the crucial moment, namely tasting". Technically, the sphere's creation needed to overcome several design challenges. The half-spheres had to be pushed higher than the axis, the polishing had to be perfect to allow the decoration to adhere correctly and the integration of a slow-motion mechanism to slow down the opening was especially tricky given the weight of the half-spheres. 

Read More/Everything you need to know about the BOAT Artistry & Craft Awards 2025

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