Today, Residence Supply introduced the beginning of its exploration of Stone as the defining detail of a room with the Stone Switch Plate Collection. The collection features natural stones honed to precision in a bid to open territory in a hardware category that it has dominated with the design houses Brass Dimmers, Toggle Switches, and Switch Plates in Satin and Vintage Brass.
Residence Supply Brings Natural Stone to Hardware
Homeowners and designers have spent the past few years upgrading faucets, pulls, hinges, and all underneath a metal material ceiling. The wager Residence Supply is making is that the industry and the design-conscious can go a step higher; that the object people physically touch more than any other in their home or even hotel is worth even more consideration.
"The switch plates are small, but they are everywhere," said Sean Tabris, Head of Product for Residence Supply and the designer behind the collection. "I've spent years carving stone on a wood lathe, which teaches you quickly that you don't force a material into a shape. You have to follow what it already wants to be. A switch plate turned out to be a good starting point to allow stone to have a new conversation in the market."
Each plate is cut from a solid slab, finished with a honed surface, and is matte so it's a touch closer to defined architecture than it is to jewelry. Because the veining is natural, no two plates are identical, and the collection is effectively unrepeatable at scale.
Inside the Stone Switch Plate Collection
The collection launches in Calacatta Viola, Rosso Levanto, and Guatemala Green, all colors chosen for their distinction rather than their neutrality.
Calacatta Viola's origins can be traced back to the Apuan Alps above Tuscany in the same marble country that supplied Michelangelo with materials for his masterpieces. It carries burgundy and plum currents through its cream-like base. The Rosso Levanto, quarried on the Ligurian coast and used by Roman masons for columns and floors, is the boldest offering with its deep red fragments suspended in a web of white. Finally, there's the Guatemala Green stone from the quarries around Udaipur, in Rajasthan. It's dense, dark, and geologically the most traveled of the three, seeing as it began as rock beneath the ocean floor before continental collisions forced it to see the light of day.
Residence Supply, in this way, breaks from conventional wisdom to just describe finishes by color, and instead chooses to anchor the identity of the materials to their history and experiences.
Residence Supply Expands The Power of Imagination
The independent design house launches this new exploration in the middle of The Power of Imagination, the creative campaign Residence Supply has been running for a quarter. The premise leading the campaign is that imagination is a filter through which all can see and experience a better world, both young and young at heart alike; arguing that we all have the capacity to look at any ordinary object and recognize that it could be much more than what its label describes it as. A series of switch plates cut from stone is a fairly direct expression of that perspective.
The go-to-market reflects the brand's confidence in both its designer and its positioning with the product series. It's running a multi-week editorial run on M.F.G., the cultural journal it publishes, covering geology and trade routes behind the stones, the history of collecting, and interviews from some of the most discerning designers in the field to set the stage for the pieces to be shown in their best light. The paid media and newsletter push to more than 100,000 subscribers follows from there, amplifying an audience that's been cultivated with dedication over the last year and a half.
The Stone Switch Plate is available for purchase and is specified intentionally for kitchens, bedrooms, hospitality and wellness interiors, and renovations where even the smallest details are worth paying attention to. Trade pricing for large project and quantity orders are available through the Residence Supply Trade Program.
