Style Curator has featured TH Brown ReFounder Toni Briggs-Brown in Meet the women shaping Australia's design industry, published 2 October 2026.

The feature brings together women working across Australian design, architecture, interiors, lighting, ceramics, art and floristry each contributing to Australia's creative and design industries in a different way.

For Toni, that story is one of Australian furniture design, heritage and entrepreneurship, and the ongoing evolution of TH Brown, the South Australian furniture brand founded by Thomas Howard Brown in 1911.

In good company

Toni appears alongside Anne Hindley of Hindley & Co, Jenn Sinclair of Comma Projects, Christal Fysentzou of Zou Home, Gina Beschorner of Style Curator, Isabelle Bayly of FRANCA Studio, Taylor McGuire Barber of DUNLIN and Philippa Demase of Art to Art.

They are joined by Jane Langof of Feng Shui Concepts, Brooke Taylor of Boho Art & Styling, Patricia Braune, Alice Bell, Michelle Morton, Elena Strohfeldt of Elso Collective and Kellie Brown of Fig & Bloom.

Together, the Style Curator feature looks at the different paths these women have taken and the businesses and creative practices they have built within Australia's design industry.

Refounded, not founded

TH Brown was founded by Thomas Howard Brown in South Australia in 1911.

More than a century later, the TH Brown furniture brand was relaunched, beginning with the return to production of one of its recognised mid-century designs: Peter Brown's Danish Bar Stool.

As Toni shared with Style Curator, seeing original TH Brown furniture still being sought out and collected decades after it was first produced raised an important question: was there a contemporary market for these Australian furniture designs, or was their appeal simply nostalgia?

The Danish Bar Stool helped provide the answer.

Its return to production demonstrated that a new generation was responding not simply to the history behind the piece, but to the design itself — its form, functionality and ability to sit comfortably within contemporary Australian interiors.

Today, Toni Briggs-Brown describes her role at TH Brown as ReFounder: respecting and protecting the history of the Australian furniture brand while taking responsibility for what TH Brown becomes next.

Australian furniture design: evolution, not reinvention

That philosophy continues to shape TH Brown today.

The objective isn't to reproduce an entire back catalogue simply because it exists. Archival TH Brown pieces are considered for reissue when their design remains relevant, can stand independently in a contemporary setting and can be manufactured to the standard expected of the brand.

At the centre of that approach are Australian design, craftsmanship, local manufacturing and longevity.

TH Brown furniture is made in Adelaide, South Australia, with pieces produced to order or in considered production runs.

The aim is not simply to preserve Australian mid-century furniture design as history, but to keep exceptional Australian design in production — and part of the homes and lives of a new generation.

It is an approach that reflects Toni's belief that timeless design doesn't have an expiry date.

Read the Style Curator feature

Read Meet the women shaping Australia's design industry on Style Curator to discover the women featured and the different paths they have taken across Australia's design industry.

Then discover Peter Brown's Danish Bar Stool, the Australian furniture design that began the next chapter of TH Brown more than a century after the company was founded.

Thank you to Gina Beschorner and the Style Curator team for celebrating Australian design and the women contributing to its future — and congratulations to every woman included in the feature.