How a Romantic Relationship Laid the Groundwork for HAY’s Lasting Influence on the Design World

Mette and Rolf Hay first met when they were colleagues at the design house Gubi, and initially it seemed they had little in common. For one, they were at different junctures in their lives: Rolf was a 30-year-old sales representative at the company; Mette was only 20, just finding her feet in the industry. As soon as they began working together, each noted certain details about the other: the way Rolf took the time to wish everyone good morning when he entered the office, and how Mette seemed to share Rolf’s exact perspective on design.

This chemistry—personal and professional, wound tightly together—soon became obvious. Mette’s mother spotted it on a chance meeting while visiting her daughter’s office. "She said she could see something in our eyes," says Rolf. "She knew it even before we did." Eventually, the realization hit one memorable evening when Rolf headed home with Mette and, as the story goes, never left again.  

Twenty years on, the Hays’ partnership is most visible through their namesake company. Founded in 2002 by Mette and Rolf with the help of their business partner and primary investor, Danish entrepreneur Troels Holch Povlsen, HAY is now a global brand with international design, sales, production and marketing teams operating across four continents, with stores from Copenhagen to Tokyo. (Povlsen divested his shares in 2019, when Herman Miller—now MillerKnoll—took a majority interest in HAY.)  

Rolf and Mette’s success as partners—at home and at work—lies in their spending the first few years defining HAY’s DNA together, then separating responsibilities completely. 

At the company’s core remains this abiding connection between Mette and Rolf. In the beginning, the couple were inseparable: working together, living together, dreaming of starting their own company together. They conceptualized their passion project of HAY, the brand, in much the same way, but soon acknowledged "that was not the way forward," reflects Rolf. "I highly recommend people start a company with their partner—you just need to create some rules." Rolf and Mette’s success as partners—at home and at work—lies in their spending the first few years defining HAY’s DNA together, then separating responsibilities completely. 

Dividing design duties as creative directors came naturally to the pair. Rolf concentrates on HAY’s furniture and lighting collections, drawing on two main inspirations: the curiosity and playfulness of Charles and Ray Eames, and the rigorous design principles of the Bauhaus. He is, in his own words, "a bit nerdy and extremely insistent on producing efficient, sustainable products."

Meanwhile, Mette concentrates on HAY’s hugely popular accessories division. With an unpredictable and intuitive sensibility, she moulds the zeitgeist by reimagining mundane objects, turning them into items that bring joy to everyday life. Channelling years of experience helping out in her parents’ design store, X-Akt, as her husband describes, "Mette can see when a product is right. She can see that from the moon."  

The Hays liken their parallel process to building a hotel. The structural elements are the all-important first decision, but future memories of a place tend to lie in the smaller components, from the lighting to the cushions to the cutlery. "It can sound like Rolf is making all the big decisions," says Mette, "but it’s more that Rolf leads the creative process, and I come in with the details."

Despite the operational sleight of hand—in that Mette and Rolf can go for weeks without consulting each other—products are intrinsically married under the pair’s shared vision. Since its founding in 2002, HAY has been emphatic in its mission to create sought-after products in an adorable context. While this is evident in the form and function of individual pieces—sofas that expand and contract, customizable bookshelves, a perfectly shaped mug designed to retain heat—the wonder is in how these products sit together so intuitively thanks to this reciprocal ideology. Rolf says, "If you made a long list of questions of what is right and wrong for HAY, Mette and I would answer them in completely the same way." The lesson? Aesthetics tend to fall into place once you’re agreed that good design should be attainable for all.  

It’s an ethos that has made HAY a desirable collaborator. Setting out to create products with "the world’s best designers" is an ambitious business plan, but thoughtful personalities, industry know-how and innate magnetism worked in the Hays’ favor. Take their relationship with the Danish designer Hee Welling, the very first designer to collaborate with the nascent HAY. In the early 2000s, fresh from a graduate degree from the Danish Design School, Hee met Rolf and Mette when they exhibited in the same furniture fair. Hee’s portfolio was a hot topic among attendees—"basically the best companies in Scandinavia"—many of whom wanted to put his designs into wider production, including Mette and Rolf. "We went home and thought it was understandable that he would choose another company," recalls Rolf, but he chose HAY due to the fledgling company’s honest desire to democratize design. The Hee Chair (2005) quickly became one of HAY’s bestselling products and remains in its collection to this day. 

There are countless stories to this effect among Mette and Rolf’s inner circle. For all their success, they still speak in awe of their collaborations with the Parisian designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, brothers who also work as a duo, and who arguably began working with HAY "years before we had earned a position" to do so, according to Rolf. "They believed in us." The Hays’ belief in building long-term relationships extends to HAY’s network of manufacturing partners as well. In the early years, when it sometimes felt impossible to "convince people to help with this dream we had," one of Rolf’s persuasion tactics was to catch potential suppliers for coffee. As Mette recalls, she was often woken at dawn by Rolf "leaving our apartment in Copenhagen to be at the factory before it opened." Employees tend to stick around, too. "A lot of people have been in the company for ten years or more—people who joined at 18 and today have children of their own," she says. "It’s one of the things I am most proud of, that our employees are like family."

Success stories in the world of business don’t often feature this kind of narrative. The design industry in particular is known for gatekeeping: it’s dominated by heritage brands, and its lack of accessibility can make outsiders feel intimidated rather than welcome. By remaining humble in attitude and nimble in design sensibility, HAY has surpassed more established competitors in creating this "family" Mette speaks of. It’s a somewhat nebulous idea, but the key character trait at HAY is a quality Rolf describes as a sort of "HAY-ish" nature.  

"For Mette and me, it’s about appreciating people," Rolf says. "A lot of our work is about creating success for the person who is next to you." He continues, "From the beginning we have been very aware that we started HAY with a pure passion for design. But we have learned over the past twenty years that, while design is the highest priority, the heart of this company is people."

Excerpted from HAY © 2022 by Rolf and Mette Hay, edited by Kelsey Keith, with a foreword by John Hoke III. Reproduced by permission of Phaidon. All rights reserved.  

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