M AG A Z I N E Autumn/winter 2010-11
ISSUE 3
UK £5
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FIX UP LOOK SHARP
ben ashton presents
New Paintings & Installations 10 February– 19 March 2011
9 Henrietta Street Covent Garden London WC2E 8PW
art@simonoldfield.com www.simonoldfield.com
Photo: Ben Ashton in The Bloomsbury Studio by Fiona Garden
CONTENTS — 6 UNCLASSIFIED If it proves impossible to define, maybe you should question the need to label it at all. Welcome to the world of BLESS.
Words BEN PERDUE Photography FRANCK SAUVAIRE Fashion editor JANE HOWARD
24 B F O R B A R A C U TA
The spring/summer 2011 collaboration previewed.
Words DAL CHODHA Photography LAURENCE ELLIS Fashion editor JASON HUGHES
30 THE COLLECTORS
From the avant garde to the atypical, b meets four collectors and discovers the UK’s largest collection of vintage Hawaiian ukuleles along the way. Words DAL CHODHA Photography CLARE SHILLAND
42 STEPHAN SCHNEIDER
In conversation with.
Words DAL CHODHA Photography STEFAN HEINRICHS
56 I N A L O N E LY P L A C E Photography NICHOLAI FISCHER Fashion editor JASON HUGHES
70 A L L T H O S E Y E S T E R D AY S Photography WILLEM JASPERT Fashion editor SAM RANGER
84 NO-FI Photography LAURENCE ELLIS Fashion editor JASON HUGHES
96 T H E B E S S AY
Adult playgrounds.
Words MICHAEL NOTTINGHAM
104 FURNITURE
Meet the future of furniture design.
Words LEWIS CHONG Photography RETTS WOOD
122 SHOP
What we’re wearing this season.
[Cover] Luka wears jacket, blazer and top TIM SOAR; Track pants ADIDAS Photography LAURENCE ELLIS Fashion editor JASON HUGHES Hair KENICHI @ CAREN Model LUKA BADNJAR @ SUCCESS
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Photography Oliver Knauer
LONDON
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M AG A Z I N E Autumn/winter 2010-11
Editorial & creative director Jason Hughes jason@ bstoremagazine.com Editor Dal Chodha dal@ bstoremagazine.com Art director Christopher Colville-Walker christopher@ bstoremagazine.com Designers Ben Smith Emily Hadden
Contributors Ben Perdue Clare Shilland Despina Curtis Franck Sauvaire Jane Howard Laurence Ellis Lewis Chong Lydia Gorges Michael Nottingham Nicholai Fischer Retts Wood Sam Ranger Stefan Heinrichs Willem Jaspert
Subeditor Stephan Takkides
Creative consultants Matthew Murphy Kirk Beattie
Fashion assistants Isabella Goumal Tony Cook
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b Magazine is published by b Store. b Magazine is a registered trademark. Nothing in this magazine may be reproduced in whole or part without the prior written permission of the publishers. Transparencies and any other material submitted for the publication are sent at the owner’s own risk and, while every care is taken, neither b Magazine, nor its agents, accept any liability for loss or damage. Although b Magazine has endeavoured to ensure that all information inside the magazine is correct at time of going to print, details may be subject to change.
Malu Stewart “A Long Summer” 9 November – 2 December
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UNCLASSIFIED — If it proves impossible to define, maybe you should question the need to label it at all. Welcome to the world of BLESS.
Words BEN PERDUE Photography FRANCK SAUVAIRE Fashion editor JANE HOWARD @ M.A.P.
BLESS No.26 Cable Jewellery WOODENMIX PHONE CHARGER 2005
BLESS No.20 O.Kayers SUNSHIELD 2003 BLESS No.19 Uncool DEGRADÉ COLOUR 2003
With its seasonal calendar, manufacturing schedules and delivery dates, the fashion industry is too rigid and cyclical for BLESS. Established in 1993 and based in Paris and Berlin respectively, the designers Desiree Heiss and Ines Kaag are collaborators in a creative practice that explores product design and art theory as much as it does fashion. To generalise about what BLESS do is to miss the point and to say they blur boundaries would be irrelevant because it assumes they recognise those boundaries in the first place. Only simple economics tie them to the world of fashion as we understand it; everything else is a voyage into utilitarian design that is as human and heartfelt as it is avant garde and innovative. “One day we decided to do a project together and here we are,” says Kaag. “The project just never stopped.”
BEN PERDUE: Can you explain how you first met and at what point you realised that there was a connection between your work that could grow into a collaboration? BLESS: We first met a long time ago in Paris, both of us still studying – Desiree in Vienna, Ines in Hannover. Both of our schools had sent students for the Concours des Jeunes Créateurs de Mode. We started talking because we found our drawings hanging next to each other. We exchanged addresses quickly, without knowing if we would ever make use of them. This is how we became pen friends, or better to say postcard friends, since we never wrote letters to each other, but somehow a wild exchange of the most wired or surprising or adorable postcards just started and we finally visited each other and became even better friends. BP: Could you describe the environment where you work and if there are any specific elements you have introduced that make it conducive to the way you like to create? Do you have your own areas? Is it a very ordered space or does chaos reign? B: [Desiree] The Paris office is spread over four different levels, giving the small space almost the feeling of a little townhouse. I try to keep it neat but it’s simply too small not to have piles of this and that taking over, which I hate. I love to have it neat, and I love to have time to take care of the plants on the terrace that I see when I look out of the window. [Ines] The Berlin studio is located in a residential area and the outside is dominated by all different kinds of dogs, since there is a lot of green surrounding us. The main room is sometimes very empty. From the outside, it looks like a waste of space since we just use it for our lunch sessions. Other times it’s packed with goods arriving from different production places, or exhibition pieces returned to us. It always provides a reason for people from the neighbourhood to stop by and ask questions about what we do. In general I’m not afraid of empty spaces, which is maybe the reason I’m enjoying living in Berlin. BP: How do you see the influence of the urban environments where you live and work manifesting itself most obviously in your projects? B: In the thirst for anything green and alive. BP: Do you find yourselves responding to the character of a city and the unique challenges it throws up? B: Coming from the countryside [Desiree] and a small town [Ines], we appreciate the instant availability of things that we need to create and that can only come from being in a big city. Otherwise we don’t really take advantage of living in a big city. We could do what we do anywhere. BP: Are there any influences that fall outside the boundaries of art, architecture, fashion and product design that you think people would find surprising sources of inspiration? B: Recently a documentary on Svetlana Geier impressed us: an 83-yearold woman who was already over 50 when she started to translate “the five elephants”: the five big novels of Dostoevsky. Also Janne Teller’s book Nothing is outstanding for a youth novel. In general inspiration is more the motivation derived from cruising around impressive women more than men, but only if you ask us about it, there is no direct relevance in fact. The word inspiration is wrong perhaps, it’s more glimpses of joy that we are happy to capture in the boredom of a rather uniform environment.
BLESS No.36 Nothingneath METALFRINGE 2008
BLESS No.20 The Bringer EXTENDED REMIX 2004 BLESS No.23 The Bringer EXPANDER SHOE SHORT 2004
BLESS No.28 Climate Confusion Assistance FAT KNIT HOME SHOES 2006 BLESS No.01 BOTSOCKS 1997 BLESS No.36 Nothingneath PUFFSANDALS 2008
BLESS No.34 Eprfect Verything SWEATERPONCHO 2008
BLESS No.32 Frustverderber T-SHIRT 2007 BLESS No.32 Frustverderber SUSPENDER STRAP 2007 BLESS No.32 Frustverderber M-SWEATER 2007
BP: It feels as if the everyday is a central theme running through your work, often focusing on the nuts and bolts of modern living in a more lateral and considered way. Is much of your work generated by your own lives and finding solutions to design problems you encounter on a daily basis … is that often how the seed for a new project or collection comes about? B: Often, if not in reality always. And yes, that’s a good explanation of how BLESS works! BP: Can the crosshatching of art, architecture, fashion and product design be used to help in some way define what BLESS is, or have the boundaries become so blurred that BLESS itself is a new and indefinable organism? B: For us the boundaries don’t exist and the most exciting thing about BLESS is the unpredictable factor. No one knows – not even us – if we’ll be doing something entirely different in five years time. We hate to generalise or give predictions. There is no need for us as designers to come up with products that would restrictively fit in only one category, nor do we feel the need to come up with concepts that would unfold in a selfevident way. For us it’s just relevant that we would be bored in reducing our field of activity into one direction. Challenge lurks everywhere. BP: Does the cyclical nature of fashion have a bearing on how often you produce your projects, or have you reached a point where concepts like seasons and collections have become irrelevant? B: On the economic side it stays unfortunately relevant. Accessories fortunately are not so much dedicated to summer and winter, and non-fashion-related products just join the regular collections as companions, or get their own fashion off season. BP: Do you think the conventional approach to fashion design based on seasons has a future? B: Personally we believe no, the shops seem to insist though firmly on a yes. BP: Does it matter to you on a creative level how the pieces come into being, or is it purely about the final product? B: It’s purely about the final product, except for a few weak moments that we always regret later and pay heavily for in boredom with our creations. That’s the most deceiving thing that can happen: seeing a piece you created and really feeling it shouldn’t exist. BP: How big a part does fabric development and material technology play in what you do? B: Not the part that we would love it to. One of our dreams is to work with scientists. Not specifically on fabrics but on many other things. BP: Can you single out any projects that you are most proud of? B: The beginning – having found each other, the fur wigs, having put adverts in i-D magazine when no one knew us. BP: The presentation aspect of your spring/summer 2011 project – complete with edible knitwear – was obviously an important element of the overall season for you, do the concepts come at the same time as the designs, or when you find the right venue? B: We wanted to do something with food and we happen to have this amazing knitwear student here from Brighton, called Lucy Walker, who developed the technique. It’s a bit due to her that the candy tops were available to that extent and present in the show. BP: What are you working on at the moment and what are you most looking forward to in the future? B: We’re working on the new collection. We are looking forward to visiting Moscow soon to photograph new interiors for our wallscape series. We are also looking forward to Christmas time, when there is lots of German gingerbread and hot wine around and you can see your breath while walking. Ben Perdue is menswear trends editor at WGSN. b Magazine
Unclassified
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BLESS No.12 Team-ups COUPLE BEDSHEETS 2000 BLESS No.37 New Sheheit HEADPHONE M 2009
BLESS No.36 Nothingneath SHIELD 2008 BLESS No.37 New Sheheit SLEEVEBOMBER 2009 BLESS No.37 New Sheheit BELLYSCARF 2009
Photographer’s assistant: Chen Yi Digital operator: Sean Geraghty Retouching: Imag’in London Thanks to Miss Dorcas Okinikan, Leanne, Lou Andrew, Shamsha, Steve, Mark and Bushska
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b
for B A R A C U TA In 1971 the Savile Row designer Tom Gilbey – also known as the king of waistcoats – worked together with the heritage brand Baracuta on a ready-to-wear collection. Nearly 40 years on, Baracuta have returned to the Row, this time forming alliance with b STORE’s Matthew Murphy and Kirk Beattie on a collaborative effort for spring/summer 2011. “My first experience of the Harrington jacket reminds me of my roll-neck-wearing last year of school!” Murphy reminisces. “So we really wanted to work with classic pieces that were the signatures of the brand.” Chosen after a delve into the extensive archives at Baracuta HQ, the jackets have been – as Kevin Stone, Baracuta brand director divulges – “blended with the distinct look and feel of b STORE.”
Words DAL CHODHA Photography LAURENCE ELLIS Fashion editor JASON HUGHES
Note b STORE’s summer interpretation of the classic 1966 Ramsey trench – it’s beige, lightweight cotton and comes with a classic b STORE check lining. The G3 50s Harrington jacket has been reborn in two guises – a dark indigo-denim version, while the second style makes more of the blue and red chequered pattern, overlaid with sheer black cotton. One of the world’s most famous fashion silhouettes, the Harrington jacket strikes a chord with most menswear aficionados and
with this in mind, Baracuta created their collaboration concept back in 2007. “Baracuta created the original Harrington in 1937 known as the G9; the jacket is so ubiquitous and timeless that it makes a perfect canvas to create new versions working with partners who are innovative and current,” tells Stone. “The brand has gone through much iteration over the last 73 years – but the essence of the brand has remained.” Part of the collection is still made in England, the brand still dresses iconic figures and it continues to innovate and work with the best retailers in the world. Margaret Howell, Junya Watanabe and Stüssy have all been past associates. In essence, Baracuta Jackets are one of Britain’s greatest contributions to menswear. “The ultimate Baracuta boy for me is James Dean,” Murphy laughs. “Both Baracuta and b STORE create wearable menswear inspired by tradition. Our garments end up being quite different but can be worn by the same man.” Stone concludes with three words surmising the collection: “timeless, symmetry and just real.”
baracuta-g9.com
Mac B STORE FOR BARACUTA; Shirt and jeans B STORE (spring/summer 2011 collection); Shoes B STORE [Previous] Jacket B STORE FOR BARACUTA; T-shirt and cargo pants B STORE (spring/summer 2011 collection); Shoes B STORE
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Jacket B STORE FOR BARACUTA; Shirt and jeans B STORE (spring/summer 2011 collection); Shoes B STORE Grooming KENICHI @ CAREN Model WILLIAM CORONA @ D1 Photographer’s assistant DUANE NASIS Retouching IMAG’IN LONDON Thanks to Raphael @ d1 and Neil Soni @ Loft Studios
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T C L T S
H O E O
E L C R
From the avant garde to the atypical, b meets four collectors and discovers the UK’s largest collection of vintage Hawaiian ukuleles along the way.
Words DAL CHODHA Photography CLARE SHILLAND
FRASER MOSS, CO-FOUNDER OF YOU MUST CREATE VINYL The first record I ever bought was by Sparks, This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us. It was 1974 and I was eight years old. Growing up in a small village in Wales, I was detached to anything that was cool and fashionable. I always felt that I was a bit different; I was into different music and I always dressed differently when I was old enough to have the choice. I always felt I was a bit off on a limb. The only thing that keeps me sane is the obsession to collect. I’ve got to a point now where I appreciate all music but I had to go through all different forms to get to this point. I’d go through phases and drop things – you name it I’ve been into it! I dabbled with goth in the early stages in 79 and 80 when bands like Bauhaus, Alien Sex Fiend and Danse Society all came out and for my sins I liked
it – but it was probably the shortest musical path I have been on. It was so depressing.
forgotten and now only makes sense today, 30 years later, but when it came out people ignored it.
I went through a heavy-metal stage too, which was my favourite period in time and to this day I am still listening to Black Sabbath and the bands of my youth – I just don’t need to have long hair and cut-off denim to appreciate it now. It used to be important to live the lifestyle of the music you were listening to. I can remember being 19 and the rare-groove thing started, I started wearing flares and stack heels like I was some black kid from the Bronx, when I was just a white Welsh kid from Newport.
I like avant-garde music and my tastes are very broad and a lot of it tends to be weird or wonderful. There is this guy called Bruce Haack from the 60s who makes weird music for children, which is a bit electronic and a bit wrong, but his stuff is the holy grail of this type of music and I found some in the Oxfam in Dalston.
I’ve got this fascination with the unknown in music, so when I travel, the first thing I do is find the nearest flea market to hunt out records. It’s finding that 45 or LP, that you take home and has an unbelievable sound; this idea that an LP was
I’m still looking for a 45 of The New Bangs’ Go Go Kitty – it’s just a fantastic record and I am desperate find a copy … the music is totally bonkers.
MONICA CHONG, CREATIVE DIRECTOR AT CUTLER AND GROSS 1940s FASHION I love the 1940s as the fashion is slightly surreal but always glamorous – kitsch, but in a very high-style way. The women were so immaculately dressed with the hats and the gloves and the bag. When you dress properly you speak properly, you stand properly, you know? I’m old fashioned. I wear all of my dresses. The first piece I ever bought in my collection, unsurprisingly, was a pair of sunglasses when I was in my first year at college in Chelsea. They were pink, cat-eye-shaped frames and I remember thinking I looked really fabulous when I actually looked really hideous. I got them from a flea market and then I kept going back for more. I hate pink now, but I had no idea what I was doing back when I bought those. Today my main supplier is Linda Bee at Grays Antiques – I mainly stick to 40s but occasionally I slip into the 50s (when it comes to underwear).
I think this must have come from watching too many old movies from when I was eight years old. On summer holiday when my parents would kind of leave me to it, I would watch things like The Red Shoes and then as time went on, I got deeper and deeper into it. I do love 40s films because the colouring is either too blue or too red – I love that – there is always a drama about nothing too, life is so boring otherwise. I then moved on to collecting 40s hats and Schiaparelli jewellery – Schiaparelli is my icon. I love the surrealist movement: the first time fashion designers worked with artists. Everything is very special and a one off, like Schiap’s lobster hat. Most people on the street might think it is crazy but I love all of that. I collect for myself and I wear my pieces – a lot of collectors don’t. I like dressing up.
I have lots of jewellery such as a couture necklace from Balmain of blue flowers, some typical 40s cocktail rings in solid gold with diamonds, Schiaparelli brooches, earrings and I have some collectable pieces by Coro Craft, which I adore. There is some jewellery that I would love to have from Mrs Simpson’s jewellery collection: The Flamingo clip brooch by Cartier from 1940 made of diamonds, rubies and emeralds – I would love to have that. Towards the end of my designing career I was doing a lot of black dresses but when I started I was doing everything but actually, my taste has always been quite gothic. I pass as a goth actually!
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MARK REDDY, HEAD OF ART AT BARTLE BOGLE HEGARTY UKULELES I don’t know any ukulele player that has only one or two – I have about 170. Originally I had this idea of collecting something silly like a lute as I thought it would look good downstairs; I was looking for something that was pretty but I stumbled on the ukulele by accident five years ago. I used to play clarinet and saxophone when I was about six and I haven’t touched a saxophone case in the last five years – I feel really guilty – this has become a total obsession. In 1879 a ship called Ravenscrag arrived in Honolulu and on board were three Madiran cabinet makers: Manuel Nunes, José do Espírito Santo and Augusto Dias. They soon started to make home-grown versions of the instruments they played in Portugal but they changed the stringing, made it out of local wood and made it easier to play. It was a bit hokey in a way but the local Hawaiians loved them. The king of Hawaii, Good
King David Kalakaua loved the ukulele and within 20 years it became a sort of indigenous object.
clarinet or saxophone, people tend to walk away but playing this, people tend not to.
Hermann Weissenborn was one of the most important instrument makers of the era. He worked in Los Angeles - an infamous bigamist, he only made a handful of ukuleles and I am lucky enough to own three of them. All from the late 1920s.
For me it’s been very important to understand the history of the instrument. The early ones are folk art in themselves and quite expressive, made at the time when the Hawaiian culture was on the brink of being subjugated. There is wistfulness, the last gasps of an extraordinary culture really. I haven’t been to Hawaii, which is very remiss, but I will go soon.
Being an art director, I’ve always had a desire to assemble objects so I have always collected things. I like the ukulele as an aesthetic object but they do something too. It’s not like a vase – I used to have a collection of about 700 – that is inert and just sits on a shelf. I like the size of the ukulele because it’s convivial. It’s not something you do by yourself in your bedroom; it tends to be something you do with a group of friends. Playing
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KATIE HILLIER, DESIGNER TIM BURTON TOYS I started collecting when I was very, very young. My grandmother had a glass cabinet in her living room full of dolls that she had collected from all around the world – I used to ask to have a look at them all the time. I wasn’t allowed to play with them and that made them more intriguing to me. First I collected soft toys, keeping them in my room on these two shelves, which at the weekend I would make into displays. They weren’t for playing with either – I’d only play with Sindy. I didn’t like playing with toys as much as I liked to organise the display of them. I was sort of like a seven-year-old art director in my bedroom! Later I became obsessed with Tim Burton and then discovered the toys that went along with his films. It’s such a fairytale, make-believe world: they don’t look like other things. Everything that Tim Burton does, his illustration which turns
into the toy and the attention to detail in the clothing and the colours and the characters faces, even the materials they are made out of, they do not feel like other toys. The first Tim Burton doll I got was Jack about 12 years ago. You have to be quite anal to be a collector but it’s a hobby and nobody else need be involved. You don’t need to get a team of people around you, which I like, you can just do it on your own.
toys but he is really specific with what he sells. You have to convince the sellers that you aren’t buying the toys for a child. You have to prove which ones you already have, the ones you are missing and prove that you are giving it to a good home and you’re not going to give it to a child who is going to rip its bloody head off.
I am often in a situation where I’ll be in a vintage or archive place so you do have to be very selective with what you collect, but that’s why the Tim Burton stuff is nice as it is mostly separate to my work. I do find them inspiring, though, and if I am ever stuck for a colour palette, they’re a good place to start. There is this guy at the Wagon Wheel flea market in a tiny place in Tampa, Florida and he sells b Magazine Collectors 41
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DESIGNER INTERVIEW — STEPHAN SCHNEIDER
Words DAL CHODHA Photography STEFAN HEINRICHS Portrait LYDIA GORGES
something Schneider is enjoying, shunning the traditional catwalk show after eight years, to focus on the small detail of selling. The glamorous excesses of a fashion show did nothing for Schneider. “I stopped catwalk shows in 2008 because I didn’t feel like there was a Born in a small industrial town near Düsseldorf, need for anyone to see the Stephan Schneider show. My buyers know the collection, they need Schneider left his native Germany in 1989 to train at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts at a time to see it closely, they want to see the garments, feel the fabrics and after eight years, I didn’t when the city was heavily under fashion’s gaze. have the passion to keep doing these shows He reflects: “Well, the Belgian phenomenon twice a year for just eight minutes. They didn’t had just begun; Dries van Noten started seem to add anything.” The theatrics proved to show in 1992 and then Demeulemeester all too detrimental to the design process. “You too – it was a very exciting time. Everything make things that you think will look good in that starts is exciting – continuation in the press or in a photo and when you don’t fashion is the really difficult thing.” have to do that any more, it’s freeing.” Schneider’s sensitive mark on fashion is as Perhaps most patent is Schneider’s earlier subtle as his design aesthetic and the designer observations to a journalist professing that there enjoys an almost cult status. “It took me almost was no “drama” in his clothes. He feels the 10 years to see the strength in this,” he recalls. term “classic” is over estimated too. “Perhaps For years he would bluff to impending buyers we should call garments with a certain heritage about the success of his label to create a buzz. ‘classic’ and that is nice, I like that, although I “When I had 20 points of sale, I said I had 40; like the word ‘tradition’ much more.” If there when I had sold 20 pieces, I said I sold 200 is no drama, no show, no excess in his clothes because I thought that you had to be big in then what is there? “My collections are not order to be respected.” Today his outlook has dramatic but there are certain extraordinary taken a sharp turn. “I’m so glad that we are elements. I present my garments so normally – only four people and we are a small company effortlessly – I never saw myself as a designer and we’re not dependent on anyone.” who wanted to be avant garde or present a Independence from the catwalk is also Ever since six graduates of Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts arrived at a London fashion fair in the back of a van in 1988, all eyes have been on the tiny Belgian city. The designer Stephan Schneider arrived there one year later.
new look or a new style. I never was concerned with that.” Schneider’s concern is in the detail: attractive to people who want to make less effort when dressing. “I think the subject of fashion shouldn’t be too heavy – for me it is not diplomatic, it is not correct, it is not right or wrong, it should stay superficial by definition. I don’t think we can really talk about fashion in the way of contrasts. I do it by intuition not by stating how I think it should be.” A somewhat beguiling paradox, a Stephan Schneider jacket may appear in fact very normal but upon inspection, the details, fabrics and cut seem so involved that it becomes easier to understand the quiet kudos the brand has cultivated. Designing and producing all of the fabrics in the collection himself, the brand makes small productions of sometimes only 30 pieces per style and in Schneider’s own prose, “it doesn’t look extraordinary”. The most enjoyable time is when the collection comes to the warehouse. “You see the pieces 50 times in a row and you see blocks of just fabric, you realise how much was sold or chosen in the chequered fabric or whatever colour. The product for me is the highlight.” Yet such an array of new fabrics can sometimes blur Schneider’s message – most people wouldn’t think of going to Stephan Schneider
“I think the subject of fashion shouldn’t be too heavy – for me it is not diplomatic, it is not correct, it is not right or wrong, it should stay superf icial by def inition.”
for a black wool suit – “It would be amazing if they did,” he says. “I have great cuts and details and it’s not always about the newest fabrics and I would love to sell some more pieces in black but the greenish-blue fabric, which is my favourite right now, is doing well, so I cannot complain.” Somewhat resolved, Schneider quips: “I don’t work to sell volume – buyers come to me and want to pick the raisins out of the bread.” Again drawing a comparison to food, he adds: “When a dish is presented normally but tastes amazing, for me it is the best dish; when there is a lot of building up or a tower on a plate, I have no interest.” His first shop on Reyndersstraat in Antwerp opened in 1996 and still looks exactly the same 14 years on. “I hate change. I think it is so nice to see a store that looks the same for 30 years. I like the bakery, which still looks the same as it did in the 1930s. I don’t change anything, even the carpet gets a bit dirty after 14 years but I don’t want to get a new carpet, it’s a nice carpet and it has a certain quality – quality is really important to me.” “I have customers who are not really into fashion, which I was surprised about. People don’t care as much any more about which magazines you might have been in. They don’t want to have this predictability of the
brand. They look at the garment, they don’t know the name and they are really happy.” Schneider is more than comfortable with the almost anonymous status his clothes and he as a designer have. “I used to think this was negative, worried about people not buying, but now they are happy when they don’t know and don’t have to buy into a pre-existing image. My clothes are like a book and when they are worn they become like the movie of the book and you don’t want to read the book anymore. I really see it like that …” It was through reading magazines that the young Stephan Schneider became first aroused by fashion. Buying his first copy of the monthly pop culture magazine BLITZ in 1986, he says: “I saw all the designers, Pam Hogg, John Richmond, it was the first time that I felt excited about fashion, but it was also the youth culture too – I was so fascinated by fashion in the UK at that time.” Visiting London two or three times a year, Schneider’s obsession with England found him at a boarding school in North Yorkshire. “I was never fascinated by Vionnet or the first Dior dress, I was always fascinated by youth.” Now a Professor at Berlin’s Universität der Künste, Schneider’s obsession with youth culture has dwindled and he takes little
inspiration from his own students. “I hope for it but I guess I am too stubborn. I really think youth culture died when the acid house smiley was on the cover of i-D magazine and the raves with 10,000 people started. I used to go to small clubs and then I remember I stood there in-between 10,000 people and for me, that was when it felt like the youth movement had died.” The lesson he likes to give his own students contrasts with the tell-all generation they are a part of. “It is really difficult in fashion as you hear so many comments about your work or about clothes and you have to filter them and still do what you feel is right. I tell my students that they shouldn’t listen too much.” In a sea of minimalism and obsessive detail, Schneider’s design motivation starts with a garment he does not like; for him, the process is about improvement. “With every collection you make mistakes and you change them the next time. I think that is my biggest motivation – to improve everything.” Underlining a turning point in the way people are wearing luxury fashion, he concludes: “Fashion asks for effort and I made so much effort 20 years ago but now I don’t anymore. I don’t know why, but now our lives ask no effort of people as they just want to enjoy – people want to dance without having to dress up or care about sweating. Once you wear trainers it’s hard to go back to leather shoes.” b Magazine Stephan Schneider 47
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“Everything that starts is exciting - continuation in fashion is the really difficult thing.�
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Stephan Schneider
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“I was never fascinated by Vionnet or the f irst Dior dress, I was always fascinated by youth.”
All clothes STEPHAN SCHNEIDER Hair and make-up JOCHEN PAHS @ BIGOUDI Models ADRIAN H, PATRICK M AND RICHARD @ TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY, KATJA SEYDEL @ VIVA
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IN A LO NELY PLACE
Photography NICHOLAI FISCHER Fashion editor JASON HUGHES
Sebastian wears jacket JAMES LONG; Scarf CAROLYN MASSEY
Pawel wears jacket CASELY-HAYFORD [Opposite] James wears coat CHRISTOPHE LEMAIRE; Jumper and boots JW ANDERSON; Trousers CASELY-HAYFORD
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Adel wears jacket and waistcoat CASELY-HAYFORD; Trousers CHRISTOPHE LEMAIRE; Boots JW ANDERSON
Pawel wears jacket CASELY-HAYFORD; Jumper and trousers ROBERT HUTH; Half-skirt LOU DALTON; [Opposite] Sebastian wears jacket and trousers JAMES LONG; Scarf CAROLYN MASSEY
Adel wears coat CAROLYN MASSEY; Jumper PETER JENSEN; Blazer STEPHAN SCHNEIDER; Trousers JAMES LONG; Necklace THE GREAT FROG [Opposite] Pawel wears blazer and waistcoat TIM SOAR; Trousers ROBERT HUTH; Belt AWAI
James wears jacket, waistcoat and trousers JAMES LONG; Shoes by B STORE (customised by stylist)
Adel wears coat CAROLYN MASSEY; Trousers ROBERT HUTH; Pawel wears coat TOPMAN DESIGN; Trousers B STORE; Socks PANTHERELLA (customised by stylist); Shoes B STORE; James wears coat JW ANDERSON; Trousers SATYENKUMAR Hair ADRIAN CLARK @ CLM using KIEHL’S Make-up ADAM BURRELL using M.A.C COSMETICS Models JAMES ALLEN @ D1, PAWEL BEDNAREK @ FM, ADEL JORD AND SEBASTIAN SAUVE @ PREMIER MODEL MANAGEMENT Set design CERIDWEN BROWN AND SOFIE DODGSON @ THE DIE MORTAL ROOM Thanks to Christophe @ Premier Model Management, Bernice @ d1 and Stephen @ FM
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THOSE YESTER DAYS Photography WILLEM JASPERT Fashion editor SAM RANGER
Curtis wears jumper TIM SOAR; sunglasses CUTLER AND GROSS FOR GILES
Fia wears coat DANIELLE SCUTT; Shirt ROKIT; Hat ARSENIC AND OLD LACE [Opposite] Darya wears dress PETER JENSEN; Scarf CAROLYN MASSEY; Gloves KATIE EARY; Boots ROBERT CLERGERIE
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Fia wears jumper PETER JENSEN; Skirt ASHISH; Hat BERNSTOCK AND SPIERS; Gloves KATIE EARY [Opposite] Curtis wears shirt ASHISH; Jeans ROKIT. Darya wears dress DANIELLE SCUTT; Socks TABIO, Boots ROBERT CLERGERIE
Fia wears jumper OSTWALD HELGASON; Dungarees ARSENIC AND OLD LACE; Hat TIM SOAR; Socks EVERLAST; Boots ROBERT CLERGERIE [Opposite] Curtis wears vest KSUBI; Trousers ASHISH
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Darya wears jumper and skirt CHRISTOPHER KANE; Socks TABIO; Boots B STORE [Opposite] Curtis wears coat DANIELLE SCUTT; Trousers B STORE; Socks NO FEAR; Shoes PETER JENSEN
Darya wears jacket CHRISTOPHER KANE [Opposite] Aleks wears dress DANIELLE SCUTT
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Aleks wears dress SIMONE ROCHA [Opposite] Darya wears T-shirt KSUBI; Skirt ASHISH; Hat BEYOND RETRO Hair HALLEY BRISKER using L’ORÉAL PROFESSIONAL Make-up MEL ARTER @ CLM using LANCÔME Models ALEKS @ VIVA, DARYA @ PREMIER MODEL MANAGEMENT, CURTIS AND FIA @ FM Photographer’s assistant JAMES FREW Fashion assistants CRISTINA HOLMES, VANESSA ARMSTRONG AND TOVA HASSELBAND Thanks to Big Sky Studios, Victoria and Stephen @ FM, Natalie & Rhiannon @ Viva, Annie & Jamie @ Premier Model Management
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Coat STEPHAN SCHNEIDER; Sweater CHAMPION
Jacket OUR LEGACY; Blazer B STORE; Tank top LOU DALTON; Track pants CHAMPION; Hat PETER JENSEN; Gloves NIKE [Opposite] Tank top LOU DALTON; Blazer B STORE; Track pants ADIDAS; Gloves NIKE
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No-Fi
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Jacket and coat TIM SOAR; Sweater CHAMPION; Track pants CASELY-HAYFORD; Trainers NEW BALANCE; Gloves NIKE
Jacket and trousers STEPHAN SCHNEIDER; Hat PETER JENSEN; Trainers NEW BALANCE; Gloves NIKE [Opposite] Blazer CASELY-HAYFORD; Waistcoat BERTHOLD
Jacket, blazer and top TIM SOAR; Track pants ADIDAS; Trainers NEW BALANCE
Suit A. SAUVAGE; Waistcoat BERTHOLD; T-shirt NIKE; Trainers NEW BALANCE [Opposite] Bodywarmer BERTHOLD; Coat B STORE; Jumper LOU DALTON; Track pants ADIDAS; Trainers NEW BALANCE; Gloves NIKE Hair KENICHI @ CAREN Model LUKA BADNJAR @ SUCCESS Photographer’s assistant DUANE NASIS Retouching KRISTIAN SIBAST @ IMAG’IN LONDON Thanks to Liana @ Success Models and Neil Soni @ Loft Studios
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Words MICHAEL NOTTINGHAM
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A D U LT P L AYGROUNDS
‘Oh! You Pretty Things’ © Chris Steiner
As a young child, there were two play activities I enjoyed the most, aside from watching TV and playing video games. One was traipsing around the woods behind my parents’ house, exploring and reimagining the landscape, creating whole provinces out of a cluster of trees and bushes and giving them names such as “Snakeland”. The other was building forts out of Afghans and blankets in my parents’ living room, crawling with my brother through the warren of fabric we’d built, much to the consternation of my parents. A lot of kids in my neighbourhood (and, I suspect, in similar neighbourhoods everywhere) shared these enthusiasms. The rapid evolution of the internet and the Nintendo games console may well have demoted such pursuits to the level of tertiary, backup amusements – the kind reserved for a power failure or the sudden onset of repetitive strain injury – but the entertainment offerings of the web and Wii etc probably owe a lot to the same juvenile sense of curiosity and impulse for exploration that sent my brother and I scrambling through the forest or raiding our mother’s quilt chest for building materials. The first time I played a 3D-shooter game such as Quake, I couldn’t help but think of those jaunts of hide-and-seek in the woods at dusk, navigating a dimly lit, tangled web of paths – which in places were so overgrown with ivy that they more resembled tunnels. That thrill of exploration is hardly the property of childhood, thankfully, or we’d all still be in the trees – not playing tag but grooming each other’s fur for ticks. It’s a big part of our advancement as a species: the drive behind scientific discovery and technological development, surveying the oceans and rocketing astronauts into orbit. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but surely curiosity is its best friend. Still, where do adults experience genuine wonderment at their surroundings or get the unadulterated, raw enjoyment of an adventurous romp through a truly new, unfamiliar environment? At risk of the sharp jab of some art critic’s pen, I’ll venture that the answer might be found in the contemporary art gallery. Some of the most exciting exhibitions I’ve seen in London over the past few years have been large, walkthrough installations – transformations of the gallery space into an immersive, unfamiliar and often interactive environment that taps into that childish sense of adventure and curiosity. These haven’t been about creating an amusement-park ethos in the gallery – Carsten Höller’s slides in the Tate turbine hall were criticised by some for doing this – but rather about evoking a childlike response to a new and strange environment and creating a space for play, while still provoking an intellectual and aesthetic response. The first art I went to see after I moved to London, just over a decade ago, was just this kind of art: a solo exhibition at the ICA by the Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto. Using enough lycra tulle to keep the Chinese army in tights, he transformed the gallery into an otherworldly, biomorphic environment that beckoned visitors to take off their shoes and step inside,
Necessity may be the mother of invention, but surely curiosity is its best friend.
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Paul McCarthy / Damon McCarthy. Caribbean Pirates, 2005. Performance, video, installation, photographs. Installation view, Hauser & Wirth London, Coppermill, 2005. Š Paul McCarthy. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Hugo Glendinning.
Christoph Büchel. Simply Botiful, 2006. Installation view, Hauser & Wirth London, Coppermill, 2006. © Christoph Büchel. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Mike Bruce.
where they could experience the work’s warm colours, its soft contours and inviting aromas dispersed by pendulous hanging sacks of spice. In a strange way, the whole construct brought to mind one of those bug-eating pitcher plants that uses pretty patterns and alluring scents to attract its insect prey into a vividly hued stomach. Fortunately Neto’s colourful creations don’t slowly digest gallery goers in an acid bath, but the biological comparison remains an apt one, as he often refers to his work as “bio-sculpture” or “bio-architecture” and even applies the word “intestinal” to the lycra tunnels in his Edges of the World exhibition at the Hayward this summer. He suggests his art represents a dialogue between nature and culture, but it’s also about the primacy of play. “At the end of the day we are all children,” he says in an interview for the Hayward. “We all want to play.” The Hayward exhibition was in part almost an aesthetic playground for adults. Outside the tunnel complex was a forest, its tree trunks’ green tights stretched from floor to canopy, while at the centre of the whole affair was a central red structure, the heart of the exhibition, its sheer, translucent walls a rich red. Inside was a kettledrum and drumsticks where visitors could provide an erratic heartbeat. There were two wooden structures you could climb to look out over into what seemed an alien cloud forest; children’s tree houses came to mind. Neto likened the strange sculpture towering outside to a giant children’s toy and there was even a paddling pool where visitors could have a splash about. While some might see the exhibition as a sophisticated tentmaker’s take on organic architecture, it seems to me an extraordinary aesthetic evolution of a child building forts out of quilts in his parents’ living room. But if there is a play element to this art, it’s surely a playground for adults. Visually his work manages to be both ethereal and concupiscent – the materials are evanescent, soft and translucent, but there’s also a turgid fecundity suggested by the rounded curves of the structures and the hanging testicular orbs. The overall effect is highly sensual and sexually suggestive. Another unusual quality common to most of Neto’s installations is their use of the olfactory, usually in the form of the hanging pouches of spices, coffee beans or other fragrant substances. This factors into both the sensuality of the installation experience and its connectedness to childhood. Smell is the least privileged in the western pantheon of the senses, more associated with the base or animal. It is literally the lowest of the senses in that the dog or pig puts nose to the ground to best pick up a scent. Smell is also the sense most associated with childhood, in the way that children play on their hands and knees and get dirty like animals, and in that it is the sense neurologically most associated with memory. Opening an old book and getting a whiff of the musty pages, for example, might suddenly transport you back to a day in the fourth grade in the school library. An exhibition at the other end of the spectrum
from the soft, sensuous atmosphere of Neto’s constructed spaces was Paul McCarthy’s huge Caribbean Pirates installation, housed at the Coppermill House near Brick Lane but part of the artist’s 2006 LaLa Land Parody Paradise exhibition at the Whitechapel. It was equally immersive and playful as Neto’s work at the Hayward, but as grotesque as the Brazilian artist’s was refined. A vulgar parody of sorts of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, it was a scream to Neto’s susurrus (or an “arrrrgh!” or “avast!”, better yet). The vast warehouse site housed a frigate, a houseboat and an “Underwater World” construction that rocked perilously to-and-fro, while throughout and in a separate room scenes were projected of increasingly lewd and brutal sporting among seafaring characters – actors wearing McCarthy’s trademark prosthetic heads and appendages, many of which were sawed at and hacked off and covered with ersatz blood in the form of ketchup. I also recall one scene of a pirate relieving himself through a hole in the deck, with copious amounts of chocolate sauce dribbling on his demented mates in the hold below. There wasn’t any actual smell to take in, but the visual display was so overwhelmingly visceral it had a haptic effect. Where Neto’s olfactory promenade is pleasantly fragrant, his connotations of the sexual subdued and masked, McCarthy’s is the virtual equivalent of a schooner coming into port full of unwashed, diseased, halfloony and blue-balled bluebeards. McCarthy was making a salient political point about America’s neo-colonial ambitions in places such as Iraq; but on a more basic level, the exhibition was a gritty promenade of sensory excess, a repugnant sensoriumcum-sanatorium where the inmates had taken over. It was abject art of the messiest order, the aesthetic equivalent of a child prodigy smearing faeces on the wall. There is an almost primal, limbic drive behind the deranged antics of McCarthy’s actors – as there was in his Piccadilly Circus, in which he filmed life-sized “puppets” (human actors in prosthetics) of George W Bush, Bin Laden and the Queen having tea – which in the McCarthy universe is held in a disused bank and involves guests smearing rotten food on each other before a few polite rounds of self-mutilation. Pieces such as this express a manifestation of the child as raw id, gluttonous sensory overload. The work has very dark overtones, but there is also a joyful exuberance to the Rabelaisian excess on display. A year after the Caribbean Pirates production, Coppermill House was again transformed into another alternate reality, this time by the Swiss artist Christoph Büchel. Simply Botiful was an even more immersive and interactive exhibition, one in which the line between art and the everyday was initially blurred. The street entrance was through a door marked with a lit hotel sign, and the foyer inside reinforced this illusion with decor typical of a shabby bed and breakfast. But climbing the stairs to the first floor took visitors to a less familiar reality, where the “hotel” halls were lined with makeshift beds as if for a giant sleepover –
or, as later clues would suggest, crowded accommodation for refugees or migrant workers. One room, dimly lit with a red light bulb, was casually littered with the cards of a call girl: condoms by the bed, used tissues on the floor, lacy knickers strewn over the radiator and an open address book burgeoning with scribbled names. Another, its artefact-laden walls and shelves recalling Sigmund Freud’s office or Andre Breton’s flat, was awash in a din of muffled heavy-metal music. The source was a wardrobe in the corner, which if you crawled into it Narnia-style led to a separate chamber. This small white room was dominated by a burnt-out motor scooter in a glass vitrine, flanked by guitar-blaring speaker stacks and clear plastic bags filled with children’s clothes and plush toys. Your interpretation, Dr Freud? Things got even stranger the further you explored, with the hotel setting eventually opening out into a vast warehouse space occupied by a necropolis of refrigerators and other white goods, mountainous heaps of disassembled computer parts and a number of caravans and shipping containers. From within these, lights flickered, beckoning the visitor to explore the intricate level of detail. I was reminded of this exhibition later the same year by Punch Drunk’s promenade theatre adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death, for which the company somehow replaced the Battersea Arts Centre with a haunted mansion, a nocturnal forest and a rowdy cabaret, each replete with minute details, significant clues and inhabited by a roaming cast of actors. As absorbing as that was, it was tied to a script, whereas Büchel’s universe is a cipher with only a fragment of the codex intact, leaving your imagination to fill in the gaps. There are signs of an indentured workforce exploited for their labour, cryptic references to Orwellian government and militant Islamic extremism, as well as a large subterranean chamber containing a partially exhumed mammoth. To reach this last whopper you have to discover the hidden entrance, climb down a ladder and crawl on your hands and knees. One reviewer likened the exhibition experience to playing a firstperson perspective video game. For me it brought to mind the excitement of those dusks in the woods, skulking around Snakeland. As it happens, Snakeland was where we always found mouldering copies of Hustler and Playboy magazines as young teenagers. My parents were devout and at the time somewhat overbearing Christians, so our secret perusals of naked flesh in rain-soaked titty mags seemed perilous transgressions – and so all the more exciting. It seemed somewhat fitting then that the other hidden tunnel in Simply Botiful led to a room strewn with stacks of black bibles, its walls papered with pages from hardcore porn magazines. An aesthetic playground for adults, indeed. Michael Nottingham writes on contemporary visual art, film, fashion and other cultural detritus. From time to time he revisits his interminable doctoral thesis on eastern European puppet animation cinema. b Magazine b Essay 103
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FUR NIT URE Six of the city's best and newest furniture
designers show us their goods.
Words LEWIS CHONG
Interior styling DESPINA CURTIS Photography RETTS WOOD
JON
HARRISON Working as a fashion photographer’s agent, Jon Harrison developed a muted envy. With a desire to be more involved in the creativity, he says: “I moved to a job from hell, I hated it, and I didn’t know what I was going to do.” Imagining a workshop, a little shed filled with his chisels and planes where he could make bespoke pieces of furniture, Harrison undertook an evening class to trial his longing; there he became hooked more on the design process and felt like it was the wrong class. “It didn’t matter because I had the realisation I didn’t want to be a photographer’s agent for the rest of my life.” Going back into education at the age of 33, he emerged a few years later from the Royal College of Art with a master’s degree in product design: “I don’t regret the journey I’ve had but I wish I’d chosen to do this 10 years previous.”
Now sharing a studio with friends who design collectively under the name Assembly, Harrison also works on his own projects and lectures part-time on a product and furniture design course at Kingston University. “I wouldn’t call my work groundbreaking. I don’t think you’d walk past it and necessarily stop but it’s the marrying of materials and objects, and what inspires me is to make them work better.” Functionality is a big part of his work. Not only of the products themselves but also the function of the environment they occupy. “Aesthetics in a design fraternity can sometimes be a dirty word. It’s definitely not a starting point with my work but I don’t have a problem with it being a part of the design.” Choosing very traditional materials, standard woods, metals and plastics, Harrison goes through phases of what he prefers to work with. Keeping the elements simple, he instead strives to learn more about the properties of the materials, how they work, manoeuvre and handle. “The more knowledge you have, the less you think you know I suppose. Everyday I learn something new and that’s what I love most about design.”
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L L O I R V I&I S A
In an unassuming brick warehouse, the product designers Loris Jaccard and Livia Lauber share their space with a whole host of creatives. A few floors up are Gina shoes, Gareth Pugh works nearby while graphic designers, writers and architects fill the space in between. Hailing from Switzerland, the enigmatic duo combine their individual ideologies to create a line of items they couldn’t have conceived singularly. “I don’t want a design aesthetic, I’m not looking for people to see our work and think this is Loris and Livia, we just want to create something that works and makes sense,” proposes Lauber. They met three years ago through a mutual friend and jointly entered a design competition, which they didn’t win, reflecting: “We won in a way … with our collaboration.” Not interested in designing something for designing's sake, the pair prefer to create products from a brief, for a particular space or a specific purpose because it gives them more of a frame to work within. “The question we always ask is not how, or is it going to be nice? It’s just why would we do that?” suggests Jaccard. “And when we know the answer it gives us the concept.”
Jaccard chose jewellery and micro design at HEAA in La-Choux-De-Fonds and Lauber studied product and industrial design at Lausanne in Romandy; both came to London to explore their craft fully. Finding that their best ideas transpire away from the studio, in restaurants and outside spaces – escapism seems the best catalyst. Using their workspace for further development and practice, the surroundings of which are scattered with cardboard mock-ups and prototypes, they work in a rather graphical way. “I did consider studying graphic design but I needed to work with three dimensions, and with materials, I just wanted to be hands on and experience experimentation,” Jaccard says. The duo understand the materials they work with and select the job for the material, not vice versa. Putting a strong accent on the tactility of their products, the designers also stress to appeal to all of the senses. They are interested in reviving older materials such as pressed glass or cast iron. “Processes where human beings are directly involved. An error can become something very beautiful,” Lauber says. "It's like a happy accident.”
lorisetlivia.com
PA B L O
L I M ON
Seemingly the most used of all the workspaces: sketches pinned on the door, shelves crammed with well-read books, tools and wood strewn about, projects half complete, you wouldn’t think that the trained graphic designer Pablo Limon is only momentarily flirting with product design. Always wanting to be a designer of some description, he says: “I have entered the design world from different doors, but it’s the keys that allow me to arrive at a product.” Featured centrally in the window of b Store, two graphic MDF and plywood chairs – in a Mondrian style – are placed alongside a concrete lamppost with beech wood and aluminium accents, commemorating his exhibition at the shop. His magnum opus sits deeper inside – the white school-desk-style table with marble trimmings and black box weave interior is pristinely beautiful. With the products displayed offering various inspirations, Limon confesses: “My influences are Bruno Munari, for his didactic approach to design, Ettore Sottsass for his radical understanding and of this generation, Philippe Malouin for his innovative lucid designs.”
Limon grew up alongside the growth of Madrid’s underground culture and was therefore heavily inspired by graffiti when he decided to study graphics at IED. Studying a year there and one in Milan, he stayed in the Italian design capital for three years to study corporate identity. Moving to London a year ago, he has since devoted “100 per cent” of his attention to furniture design. “I have always been attracted to industrial design as a discipline.” Believing this era is about creating items of the moment and not for the future, Limon prefers the value of a limited range of objects. The minimal quantities allow the expression realised in each piece to be much purer. Preferring to work alone but surrounded by friends and people who fulfil him, he proffers that books are his most intimate sources of enrichment; books from authors such as the American novelist Charles Bukowski, the Italian writer Italo Calvino and the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca are very close to Limon’s heart.
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BETHAN
WOOD The idea of a product is a loose one: not so much the concept of the product itself – a sellable, usable item – but rather the many ways this multifaceted word can be applied. One designer who has firmly implemented, understands and most crucially enjoys the transient process of creating a product is Bethan Wood, who has painstakingly crafted a personal repertoire of pieces and projects to suit her own sensibilities. The spanning range of interests at the heart of her work permeates through, from assisting the set designer Gary Card for various publications such as Man About Town and Another Magazine – where she carved oceanic waves out of wax for a fine jewellery shoot – to whimsically enhancing urban spaces with paper sculptures. Proudly featured as a designer in residence at the Design Museum London, Wood has her fingers in many metaphorical pies. Her current fascination is with laminate, and its potential for "hyperreality". Almost
trompe l'oeil, laminate can project the appearance of a more wholesome material, one with depth and intricacies, on to an otherwise flat medium. Her Super Fake collection was influenced by the materials that make up
the city – especially the patterns and surfaces found in east London. “I became fascinated by laminate as a material that is used to evoke everything from marbles to mahoganies.” Always knowing she wanted to pursue a creative career, perhaps that of an artist, Wood has explored various avenues since her early teens. Starting out by working with a ceramicist, learning the technique and craft, it wasn’t until making her first stool on a foundation course that she realised it was the design of everyday products that truly spoke to her. She completed her MA in product design at the Royal College of Art, where her tutors had a huge affect on her ambitions. “Martino Gamper and Jurgen Bey influenced me to think bigger and deeper about my work in connection to locality and what I want to bring about from it.” This was when she finally had a chance to collect all her passions and interests into the multifarious practice she continues today.
woodlondon.co.uk
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PA S S D E F E L I X
felixdepass.com
Placed on Felix De Pass’s desk is an Alan Fletcher clam ashtray, filled with pistachios. “I’ve had it in my life for years, it’s the first design product I owned.” Now freelancing for the design and manufacturing company Established and Sons, Felix finished a BA in 3D design at Manchester Met before going on to graduate from the Royal College of Art with a master’s degree in product design. De Pass constantly photographs and mentally logs everything that inspires him – “like a nice little detail on a piece of wood or a bollard that hasn’t been considered as a design object but has some sort of character to it” – just in case he needs to call upon it later on. The biggest inspiration for De Pass, however, is his interior-designer father. Growing up surrounded by design propelled Felix toward his vocation, “In a way, it’s like I’ve been designing from a young age.” What he is working on now is breaking into the world of design, perhaps the hardest part of any creative field. Having always been interested in mass production and taking a lot of joy from resolving a problem that allows a product to be made faster, De Pass is trying to forge relationships with the companies and manufacturers he could work with. “Some of the stuff that goes into production – it just amazes me that it even got to that stage. It’s not necessarily about that’s better than that, it’s about the relationship between the designer and the manufacturer, having that understanding where they’ll try things out.” His aesthetic is simple, pared-down, functional and quite utilitarian. Removing the superficial from his work, he does not adhere to trends or certain fashions because “products are something that you intend to live with for a while so they need longevity”. The nature of his work is to sit comfortably within an existing lifestyle, unimposing. “It can be quiet annoying if you have a product that just shouts at you, it’s usually a designer just showing off.”
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L S H A M U O F M TO n. it’s imaginatio has anything, er cano gn ec si M de od is If th childho today that his ed ill sk e th Making things s m Foulsham ha d the creative set couldn’t, To an engineer an of g in nd ta rs de ter studying at un t designer. Af uc od pr ona of curiosity ure, the Lond ol of Architect ho sign Sc de tt t le uc ar od B the plore pr went on to ex I’ve ad gl ly al re born designer “I’m ollege of Art. s almost at the Royal C disciplines, it’ o tw e th ne bi m co .” to em d th te of ar st e out g my own spac like I’m makin den neck of a woo lancing on the op at t sa ts vo Perilously ba eel pi sharpened st , they w llo ye chair are two ry na wdered in ca ned each other, po me re-envisio freely. Like so t vo ird B ig B ng spin and pi di an mp, the freest Anglepoise la and light unit. ng vi el sh le is an adjustab
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SOUTHARD REID
Tina Larkin for Taos News 2009
SAM BELINFANTE 2 – 18 DECEMBER WEDNESDAY – SATURDAY 12–6PM 2ND FLOOR 67 DEAN STREET SOHO LONDON W1D 4QH
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SHOP — What we’re wearing this season
A. SAUVAGE asauvage.com ADIDAS adidas.com ASHISH ashish.co.uk AWAI bstorelondon.com B STORE bstorelondon.com BARACUTA baracuta-g9.com BERNSTOCK AND SPIERS bernstockspeirs.com BERTHOLD bstorelondon.com BEYOND RETRO beyondretro.com BLESS bless-service.de CAROLYN MASSEY carolynmassey.com CHAMPION championusa.com CHRISTOPHE LEMAIRE christophelemaire.com CUTLER AND GROSS cutlerandgross.com DANIELLE SCUTT daniellescutt.com EVERLAST everlast.com THE GREAT FROG thegreatfroglondon.com JAMES LONG jameslonguk.com JW ANDERSON j-w-anderson.com KATIE EARY katieeary.co.uk KSUBI ksubi.com LOU DALTON loudalton.com NEW BALANCE newbalance.co.uk NIKE nike.com NO FEAR nofear.com OSTWALD HELGASON ostwaldhelgason.com OUR LEGACY ourlegacy.se PANTHERELLA pantherella.co.uk PETER JENSEN peterjensen.co.uk ROBERT CLERGERIE robertclergerie.fr ROKIT rokit.co.uk SIMONE ROCHA simonerocha.com TABIO tabio.com TIM SOAR soar-london.com TOPMAN topman.com
DIRK STEWEN October – November 2010
LARS LAUMANN project MUNTEAN/ROSENBLUM November 2010 – January 2011
MICHAEL KREBBER January – February 2011
ANDREW GRASSIE February – April 2011
JAMES WELLING April – May 2011
DAVID SALLE May – July 2011
MAUREEN PALEY. 21 Herald Street, London E2 6JT telephone: + 44 (0)20 7729 4112 fax: + 44 (0)20 7729 4113 www.maureenpaley.com