This week, during the hype and hoopla of the Frieze art fair, Alasdhair Willis, CEO of the furniture maker Established & Sons, is opening a gallery to sell one-off, British-designed furniture pieces. It’s an audacious move for a company that is only three years old, but it comes as Willis’s own star is brighter than ever, with the blooming of his company, his appearance in the new Gap ad campaign and the imminent arrival of his third child with his wife, Stella McCartney. And it’s a move that cements the nascent trend for art furniture.

Established’s debut show features five of the company’s reputation-building pieces refashioned in Carrara marble, including Zaha Hadid’s iconic Aqua Table, Jasper Morrison’s controversial Crate (looks like a wine crate, costs £95; the marble version costs somewhat more) and Future Systems’s Drift bench.

“We’re entering a new period in design and how it is perceived,” says Willis of the art-furniture trend. “People want to show off their individuality – become curators of their homes, rather than be dictated to by brands.” No surprise really: for years, popular taste has favoured the mass-produced and inexpensive (ripples of the Ikea effect), but now people are reevaluating design and craftsmanship.

“Design is having a moment,” says art dealer Gordon Watson, whose clients include Madonna. And in doing so, it’s stealing the limelight, as well as buyers, from the art world – after all, only a limited number of people can afford this stuff. “Value in furniture used to be determined by the material, a solid-oak table, for example, or how economically thousands of pieces of a design could be produced,” says Willis. “With Established & Sons, the idea was to turn this notion on its head and create one-off or limited-edition pieces, with a focus on design.”

Willis’s design nous isn’t limited to interiors – his other half was obviously something of a coup. “I was pitching to create the brand identity for Stella’s label, and she came in for a meeting,” says Willis. “We haven’t left each other’s side since.” His adoration of his wife – and now mother of their 2.7 children (with 0.7 due in December) – is genuinely charming.

But despite being very much a family man, he hasn’t taken his finger off the business pulse. Established & Sons has been quick to realise that pricey, directional design pieces are supplanting antiques, as tastes and perceptions of luxury change. “There’s a huge growth of interest in these one-off, statement pieces, and a new taste for extravagance, usually associated with the seriously rich,” says Tony Chambers, editor-in-chief of Wallpaper magazine. “But this is now spreading to a new demographic.”

Art buyers are looking to the contemporary-furniture market for investment pieces, and as these pieces become more fashionable, prices shoot up. And the design savvy – those who, a few years ago, would have starved for three weeks to afford a pair of designer shoes – are now earning more and hankering after must-have furniture instead. They have worked out that, unlike shoes, furniture has longevity.

On paper, Willis’s career path might look rather random, but with the addition of Established & Sons to his CV, you can see how everything dovetails into the furniture-as-art role he is carving out for himself. After studying at the Slade School of Fine Art, he went on to become the publisher of Wallpaper, which gave him an understanding of the business side of luxury goods and led to consultancy work for Adidas and Gucci, among others. “Having four different careers is a modern thing, isn’t it?” he muses.

Willis’s passionate nature is evident in his work. He gets wildly irritated by things such as light switches and fire alarms being poorly placed. “I mean, why is that there?” I hear him muttering to an offending wall, as we wander around the space that will be housing the new Established & Sons gallery. It is boldly located on Duke Street, SW1, a stone’s throw from Jay Jopling’s White Cube, the Wolseley and the Ritz. And with all the big design names (as well as his own) attached to this new venture, you can practically smell the anticipation in the air.

Despite the high profile, Willis’s lack of arrogance gets you on side, and his vision is genuinely admirable. “He has a clear idea of wanting to put British design on the map and giving our craftsmanship an international profile,” says Chambers. In an industry caught in the stranglehold of a few Italian manufacturing giants, you can’t help but wish him luck.

From October 11, 2-3 Duke Street, SW1; 020 7608 0990, www.establishedandsons.com

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