Story 5
(1989-2010)
Newfound freedom
The year 1989 brought TON the opportunity to reintroduce itself to the world and to redefine the legendary story of furniture from Bystřice pod Hostýnem for the new millennium. TON was legally restructured as a state-owned company in 1989 and became a privately owned joint-stock company in 1994. Throughout the 1990s the newly privatised company focussed mostly on producing chair models with a traditional look and on searching for new opportunities. The change in the country’s political system necessitated reorientation towards new markets, and TON worked hard on reaching customers in Western Europe and the USA. This was a time of great soul-searching for a company facing the decision of whether to become a manufacturing facility for other brands or continue to produce its own furniture. TON chose the latter path.
With the start of the new millennium, TON began to build the brand’s new identity, to create the company’s marketing and visual strategy, and to introduce modern automation into the production process. The company also started to collaborate with designers: Tom Kelley joined TON in 2004 as Art Director and contributed to the overall strengthening of the brand’s design potential. One of Kelley’s ideas was the creation of the sub-brand Tonster, an idea that was ultimately abandoned.
This period was also characterised by the clean and simple designs of the Prague-based studio Olgoj Chorchoj, the Czech designer Jaroslav Juřica and the Danish designer Mads K. Johansen. The path had been laid for the emergence of the new TON, with international trade fair success just around the corner.
Catalogues from the 1990s were designed by Zdeněk Pleha.
Norma chair was part of the so-called American Line, which became popular during
the 1990s.
Restructuring of TON
The agreement to create the joint stock company TON a. s. with headquarters in Bystřice pod Hostýnem was signed on 13 December 1993 in the offices of JUDr. Petr Bílek. The agreement defined in five brief pages the establishment of TON as a privately held company and formed the basis for the company’s new direction.
200-year anniversary of the birth of Michael Thonet
The year 1996 marked 200 years since the birth of Michael Thonet, the founder
of the Moravian furniture industry. To commemorate the occasion, TON installed a
memorial statue featuring the iconic chair No.14 in the Bystřice factory
complex.
Merano
The collaboration between TON and Alexander Gufler had a fundamental influence on the current form of the Bystřice-based brand. The company’s management was impressed by this Italian designer at the IMM trade fair in Cologne in 2010. There, Gufler presented a prototype of his Merano armchair, which soon became part of the TON collection.
Interview with Arik Levy
Israel-born and Paris-based designer Arik Levy is a leader among designers of his generation. Before exploring bentwood in Bystřice pod Hostýnem, Arik designed dozens of furniture pieces. In 2015 he created the Split collection for TON, in which he integrated the bentwood tradition with his dynamic, structurally refined design.