Furniture, furnishings, and interior design

[radio-aktivität]

Furniture is the next fashion. It's the last frontier that has not been made sexy yet. I'm getting into that space more and more.

Maybe this discussion deserves a thread on it’s own?

There’s quite a lot happening in contemporary interior and furniture design. Companies tend to make their libraries more consistent and, finally, the myth around the classics fades. It’s no longer a sacrilege to improve a fiftie’s design with contemporary fabricsl for instance. Or new variants (dining chairs with higher seat posts or in newer materials). Just look at what Hella Jongerius tries at Vitra Home, carefully dusting away the old.

On another hand, we should maybe differ between gallery-sold »artist« furniture and, well, more utilitarian pieces. That last decades, and such.




To not derail this: I really like the color. One more to add to Ricks peacock fantasies.

[550BC]

Any interesting designers you recommend checking out?

Pournoir, Lukas Machnik

[Faust]

Do you think this is because of the new movement of people carefully curating their environment?

It's more that it's just the last unexplored frontier where fresh thoughts are still possible. Everyone, and I mean everyone in that space is now watching Rick Owens very carefully, and are also very jealous of the attention fashion gets. It's also an incredibly mismanaged industry. There are definitely possibilities here.

Also, the whole minimal, primal, artisanal, earthy, dark thing is beginning to spill over into this purposefully and inadvertently and I find that very fresh and exciting. Right now I am closely following (to answer you, ryanhast).

Vincent Van Duysen
Joseph Dirand
Lukas Machnik
Michael Verheyden
Apparatus
Caste Design

just to name a few.

[zen dog]

There already a thread with furniture as subject, but I'll continue here.

Furniture has already arrived. Wealthy art collectors have turned their attention to 20th and 21st century design. That has pushed prices up but also allowed younger designers to gain attention and maybe even make a living. You are seeing it flourishing enough to gain general attention.

Here are several designers worth looking at (I won't say cutting edge since they've all been around for a little to a great while, but worth knowing as a foundation and their work still stands up):

Gerrit Rietveld (alot of reissues available), Shiro Kuramata (same), Maarten Baas, Fernando & Humberto Campana and Tejo Remy & Rene Veenhuizen (I'm still pissed I ran out of room and money before I could buy their bound drawers).

[zen dog]

Faust and 550BC, I googled your suggestions and enjoyed them all. The spare, uncluttered spaces and furniture with the materials' qualities undisguised makes total sense with so much of the clothing here.

I came to clothing after objects and furniture. To state what you already know, unlike clothing, your purchases are much more "insistent"- they can't be stuffed in drawers or wedged in a closet. Some, most, of the spaces from the designers you mentioned are amazing. I wonder how much of that atmosphere can be carried home when an object is purchased. I think clothing can often be purchased as an entry into a certain lifestyle (more than once a salesperson has told me as I hold an edgy piece of clothing "It would look great at an opening"). The idea of buying "spare" may be a challenge for the acquisitive among us.

[Faust]

I am going to move this discussion to the furniture thread by tonight - this has potential!

More and more I am coming to view StyleZeitgeist (the forum and especially the magazine) as an aesthetic universe and a way of life that has certain cultural and philosophical underpinnings. Whether it's fashion or music or art or literature or architecture or interior design, any creative discipline's ethos can overlap with that of another. I am more and more curious about this cross-influence, because I came to fashion through music in the first place and I love designers who draw influences from culture and manifest them through fashion. It all makes sense to me.

[DudleyGray]

I am going to move this discussion to the furniture thread by tonight - this has potential!

More and more I am coming to view StyleZeitgeist (the forum and especially the magazine) as an aesthetic universe and a way of life that has certain cultural and philosophical underpinnings. Whether it's fashion or music or art or literature or architecture or interior design, any creative discipline's ethos can overlap with that of another. I am more and more curious about this cross-influence, because I came to fashion through music in the first place and I love designers who draw influences from culture and manifest them through fashion. It all makes sense to me.

Not to derail the thread further, but I'd been thinking a lot lately about music and fashion. I never cared about "Fashion" beyond some clothes that tied me to scenes until I saw Rick, which opened me up to appreciate UC/n(n)/etc. Ann/Raf were before I had a job and I wasn't cool enough to know about them. Hedi caught my attention but I wasn't far enough into my career to take the plunge. I do still have/love/wear a knock-off L-zip.

Anyways, it got me thinking about the gap between Vivienne Westwood and Antwerp. Surely there were other important designers highly influenced by underground music, I just don't know about them and if anyone can offer up info, it would be much appreciated.

Then there was also this thought that I used to be so anti-luxury/anti-consumerism, and yet here is this beautiful scene of people making luxuriously rebellious clothing. That's something I've just filed away as 'resolve later,' but it does create a weird inner conflict between what I believe and what I'm doing, with the exception of knowing at least the workers are being fairly compensated (mostly?) and most of the stuff I want is old/used anyways.

[radio-aktivität]

I am more and more curious about this cross-influence, because I came to fashion through music in the first place and I love designers who draw influences from culture and manifest them through fashion. It all makes sense to me.

It does, and curiosity is key. Meanwhile I wonder how furniture, which (generally speaking!) used to be more elementary and utilitarian than cothing, goes with fashion. After all, it’s a very practical thing (with a design most often proven for, well, centuries). I completely see that we’re all far away from consumerism, but with furniture, we don’t talk about years of use out of your object, but probably decades. Our people equip their homes with mid- or early twentieth century designs for a reason. My aluminum chairs are now something between 25 and 30 years old, and still — more or less — like new. And i know danish sofas that are older than my parents, yet like new and timeless. (don’t shop this to my mom)

Also, there’s a comfort issue. I’d rather engage in discomfortable, restricting clothing for some hours than sitting so on such a sofa.



So I’m waiting for the aesthetic to arrive and the circle to close, and I hope that our designers won’t lose their minds over our old bones (that from time to time need some flattering, too)
Or is there fashion that is practical?

[radio-aktivität]

to replace the sofa is a 620 vitsoe chair because i can only afford one seat!

the good thing is that you can upgrade to a two seater once needed (and have two crazy armrests for display objects then)

or you could ask these guys for a container shipment. they sell a 3 seater for the price of not even half a single one.

http://www.minimalconcept.de/2014_sofa_dieter_rams_3sitzer.htm

edit:
I never heard of RH before and googled it. I shouldn’t have!

[GucciAmen]

Not sure if this is the appropriate thread... But I've always wondered, how big is the market for RO's furniture line?

[ryanhast]

Thanks for the lists 550 and Faust. I have always felt architects make the best furniture designers. It's great to see that is still true with contemporary efforts.

[Nickefuge]

I think the market is not as small as one would believe. Sure, the prices are high, but as mentioned before in this thread, there aren´t that many options to choose from if you want to achieve this earthy look.
I myself am inspired by Rick and Michele´s approach of building everything they need themselves – I´d love to rebuild the "Ulmer Hocker", which is a stool students of the "Hochschule für Gestaltung" had to build themselves int he first semester. They used to sit on it (duh) and to carry their books – the HfG was a design school in the 50s/60s and next to Bauhaus one of the most important ones.

This is the stool:



It would also make a great side table. Of course, Vitra sells it for a ridiculous price, but I´m afraid I´ll manage to cut off both my arms during the process of rebuilding it. :/

[TheDivinitus]

Not sure. That monumental Rick furniture probably should go on a slab-on-grade floors only. So it brings some limitations...

[rider]

glassware. does anyone know of bar glasses that are in the same frame of mind as square and industrial in form?

[Nickefuge]

Idk how far one can go with glassware, at least with wine or whiskey glasses as they have an influence on the taste, so there´s not a whole lot you can do with the form. I do find these handleless (?) wine glasses by Riedl nice though: