TABLE LAMP

                                                      image courtesy of ©studiohaos
 

Sophie Gelinet and Cédric Gepner's journey into furniture design is a remarkable tale of experimentation and fortuity. Their passion for creating elegant and distinctive furniture pieces led them to construct their initial lamp, which bloomed into an abounding collection and led to the Studio HAOS in 2017. Their philosophy is rooted in the belief that simplicity is elegance, and emotional impact is more important than extravagant materials. The studio's focus is to merge technical solutions with aesthetic finesse to transform humble materials into poetic and distinctive furniture pieces. Headquartered in Lisbon, the studio designs and crafts furniture and lighting fixtures in its bespoke workshop, making them the perfect choice for anyone looking to add a touch of elegance and sophistication to their space.

EXCLUSIVE STEPHEN KENN´S SOFA

I am not just a big fan and Lover of fashion, art and music, I am also always in Love with great furniture pieces and always follow all categories in the industrial design.

I simply fell in Love with Stephen Kenn´s work. He is a Canadian artist and designer, working for a decade in the design work and created multiple denim lines, men´s travel luggage, is now turning more and more in the world of furniture design. Inspired by the simple design philosophy of the mid-century era and the stories of the WWII military fabrics, he created “The Inheritance Collection”. You can see the whole collection that includes a sofa, chair and ottoman, loveseat, chaise lounge, cube stool, Armchair, clothing rac, here. Take a look at a video below, where he explains and describes the philosophy, the mood and the soul of this collection.

This furniture collection made him to collaborate with the Champion City Gym Shop in New York and Todd Snyder, to create a custom-made sofa, exclusively made for the shop. The frame is made with an oxidized black finish, the cushion covers with a Faribault wool blankets, the leather is a vegetable tanned cognac brown, and the webbing dyed a deep grey color. The blankets are reproductions of the design that Faribault originally made for the U.S. Navy. You can buy this sofa in Champion´s City Gym Shop in New York or at the Stephen Kenn online shop, where you can find all of his great products.

/ Photos and video courtesy of Stephen Kenn /

Muji manufactured by Thonet

When Japanese lifestyle gurus Muji looked West for inspiration, seeking to explore new markets, they settled on the historic German manufacturer Thonet, and two of Europe’s big name product designers. The resulting collection of furniture that came from this collaboration is a meeting of the best elements involved.

‘Muji manufactured by Thonet’ consists of a reinterpretation of two of Thonet’s pioneering techniques: bentwood from the 1850s and tubular steel furniture from the 1920s. Thonet’s Creative Director James Irvine took bentwood to task, creating a refined version of the classic 'No 1' chair from 1859, removing the more decorative support elements and adding a horizontal panel to the back of the chair, which when placed at the dining tables he also created, disappears in line with the tabletop.

Konstantin Grcic reimagined the Bauhaus tubular steel collection and came up with a cantilever floating office chair, reminiscent of Breuer’s B 32 and a matching desk, made from one length of steel tubing with a charcoal MDF tabletop.

All the products are manufactured, as the project’s title suggests, at Thonet’s HQ in Frankenberg and sold through Muji stores around the world. Aside from exploring new possibilities, pairing traditional techniques with contemporary designers’ visions, the initiative was to open up Thonet’s back catalogue to the younger, design-conscious and savvy audience of Muji.

Settling on a historic brand with a very similar aesthetic to the contemporary Japanese retailer and working with two individuals who propagate a rigorously industrial approach to design has resulted in a collection with extraodrinarily widespread appeal. You don’t need to be a design aficionado to appreciate the streamlined beauty of the furniture pieces, or to tell how well they’ve been made.

Muji’s prerogative was to make the new collections accessible pricewise without scrimping on the very high quality associated with Thonet’s manufacturing. And, take it from us, in terms of bang for your buck, you’d be hard pushed to find a more beautifully finished, reasonably priced collection of furniture on the market.

James Irvine's sketches for his designs

Tubular Steel chair by Konstantin Grcic, £215

Tubular steel desk, from £215 by Konstantin Grcic

Beech bentwood chair, £215 and table, from £325 both by James Irvine

Tubular steel low table, from £225 by Konstantin Grcic

James Irvine's beech bentwood chair alongside the original Thonet version from 1859

James Irvine's beech bentwood chair also comes with a Muji-esque net seating

Profiles of Grcic's desk and low table

Grcic's sketches fro the cantilever tubular steel chair

Grcic's sketches fro the cantilever tubular steel chair

Grcic's desk also comes with attachable drawers in Muji's familiar PP style

Grcic's sketches for the low table

INFORMATION

Muji manufactured by Thonet will be available to buy in the UK from 1st August

Website
http://www.muji.co.uk

Furniture Chandigarh exhibition

It happens so rarely these days but every now and then you hear of someone stumbling across a classic piece of furniture that has been discarded or taken to charity, unbeknownst of its true value and selling for tenths of its worth.

In a discovery the design equivalent of Howard Carter’s unearthing of Tutankhamen’s tomb, Richa Mukhia stumbled across a host of original one off pieces of furniture designed by Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret for a specific project they were working on in the early 1950s in India in the city of Chandigarh. After five years of salvaging and careful restoration the collection is now on show in London’s cavernous P3 space.

In post-Raj India Le Corbusier and Jeanneret were commissioned to design a city in the foothills of the Himalayas, putting into bricks and mortar their ideas of modern living. Responsible for the town planning, landscaping and architecture it was an opportunity for them to try out their ideas on an unprecedented scale. Less widely documented but certainly no less significant was the furniture they also designed for the city.

'We obtained the furniture about five years ago after spotting it on a rubbish tip in a very tired state,' explains Mukhia. 'Though the buildings in Chandigarh were still very much in use, the furniture, which was predominantly timber, was nearly 50 years old and showing its age. Hence it was discarded when rufurbishment of the interiors was carried out.'

It’s unusual in that it is simple, handcrafted and largely wood, not the mass-produced tubular steel creations more often associated with the pair. It’s a gentler, perhaps truer form of expression of the mass-individualism propagated by the pair, as well as displaying an incorporation of the particular local Indian craft and social requirements, as opposed to post-War Europe where the pair had until then worked.

The exhibition at P3 is the first outing of this comprehensive collection and alongside regular household furniture includes recreated sections of Chandigarh’s Palace of Justice (see above) and the Capitol Complex as well as plans, models and narratives about the project. Though an impressive collection by any standards one can’t help feeling it's all the more precious for the fact that it was so nearly lost for good.



The Furniture of Chandigarh Exhibition Plan


Sofa set


Captiol Complex Model and Timeline Drawing


Conference Table Detail


Conference Table


Teak writing desks Type 1 &2


Teak writing desks type 1 & 2


Gallery showing photographs of Chandigarh


Deliberation chamber


Court room scene




INFORMATION


Event dates
20 June 2009 to 12 July 2009

Website
http://www.p3exhibitions.com

Address
35 Marylebone Road London NW1 5LS

Trend: Check Points

Text by Venessa Lau Photography by Patricia Heal Styled by Marcus Teo

The fall catwalks offered houndstooth aplenty, but ho-hum haberdashery this was not. Rather, the patterns came oversize, vivid and oh-so-audacious. Consider Alexander McQueen’s stunning lineup, with its series of witty variations on the classic weave, some even drizzled with Pollock-like scribbles. More romantic types can look to the ladylike versions at Moschino and Bensoni, while sportif sorts should hit up Stella McCartney for a little jagged edge. Check, please.



Clockwise from near right:
Moschino’s wool blouse, at Bergdorf Goodman, New York, and wool skirt, at Moschino, New York;
DKNY’s leather belt, at select DKNY stores;
Jennifer Ouellette’s wool headband, jenniferouellette.com;
Alexander McQueen’s wool coat, at Alexander McQueen, New York and Los Angeles, and wool jumpsuit with attached plastic booties;
David Steele by Albrizio Millinery’s horsehair and cotton soutache hat, at Albrizio Millinery, New York;
Manolo Blahnik’s wool and leather pump, at Manolo Blahnik, New York;
Brett Fuss’s Plexiglas lamps;
Longchamp’s cotton canvas tote with patent-leather trim, longchamp.com;
L.A.M.B’s ponyskin bootie, at select Nordstrom stores;
Bonaldo’s polycarbonate chair, by Karim Rashid.