Up and Coming
SuTurno, Graphic and Textile Designers
11.15.10 — By Jill Singer

In some ways, Marc Jacobs is a bit like Oprah. With a flick of his influential magic wand, Posh Spice can suddenly be considered cool, Bleecker Street can become the place you simply must open your New York shop, and a Madrid-based, husband-and-wife graphic-design duo can go from virtual unknowns to the toast of magazines and blogs around the world. That’s what happened two years ago to Julia Vergara and Javier G. Bayo, co-principals of the print and pattern design shop SuTurno, whose Bolsaco tote — a simple canvas bag made from vintage stock found in an old warehouse in Spain — was spied by two of Jacobs’ buyers at the Madrid shop Peseta. “It was the first product we ever made with the SuTurno label on it, and it became our most hyped design to date,” says Bayo. The two were asked to produce a limited edition of bags for the Marc by Marc Jacobs stores in the States, and they promptly sold out within a few days.

Vergara and Bayo, though, are no strangers to the idea of creating covetable fashion basics. After all, half of their studio work is devoted to creating prints on commission for Spanish brands like Hoss and Zara Home — at least it was, until the recession hit and budgets dried up. But the lack of incoming work actually proved to be a boon for their personal projects, which involve creating patterns based their travels and everyday observations and applying them to cushions, ceramics, and scarves. In fact, it’s ironic that SuTurno made its name on the Bolsaco tote, whose only embellishment is a shoulder strap with brightly colored stripes, when most of the pair’s work is defined by a watery, desaturated palette and a signature smudged look.

That palette may have stemmed from the fact that both designers grew up in port towns: Bayo in Santander, in the north, and Vergara in Alicante, in the south. “Both are cities that have similar profiles: around 250,000 people and boring,” says Bayo. “But they are the places that made us become creative. We spent most of our childhoods at home, playing with pencils and watercolors, reading books, and experimenting by ourselves because the outside wasn’t appealing to us.”

What inspired you to be a designer?
“Julia always wanted to work in the creative field. She’s been surrounded by artists all her life. But it was tough for her to choose what exactly she wanted to do. When she realized her obsession with repeated patterns could relate to textile prints, the choice was clear. Javi, on the other hand, spent his childhood drawing on everything even before he knew the word graffiti. Schoolbooks, desks, and one of his mum’s lamps sported his first designs. When he realized his love for graphics, he was already studying law at university; he made a U-turn in his career after moving to London and enrolling in a graphic-design course that changed his life.”

Current side projects:
“Julia also works for Helena Rohner, a designer whose jewelry and ceramics are well known in Spain. Javi works as a graphic designer for various clients. He’s also involved in the local music scene as a DJ and event promoter.”

What a stranger who saw your work for the first time would say:
“First-time reactions seem to be quite positive so far! They say our work is elegant, strong, and subtle. Another common first reaction is to mix up our name. Every time we hand out our business card, people tend to say, ‘Oh, I see, Saturno’ (Saturn in Spanish). SuTurno actually means ‘your turn,’ but since we write it all together it can be easily mixed up with Saturno. We used to worry in the past but now we sort of expect this comment and have to make an effort to refrain from laughing.”

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tiles

What inspired your screen-printed tiles? "At university, Julia did a final project about the use of bricks in the so-called Neo-Mudéjar style, an architectural style that developed in Spain in the 19th century where bricks were used for both functional and aesthetic purposes, to create certain patterns."

tiles2

"We have this private joke where we call them 'inu-tiles' (inutiles means useless in Spanish), because although they've been properly baked, the natural texture of the clay has been preserved and it's not suitable for most practical applications such as floor or wall tiling. But that specific texture is what we liked most about these kinds of tiles and what encouraged us to use them."

boxes

"We've realized that the tiles actually make sense as simple objects on their own — you can buy them mounted on a beech frame or for use in murals or furniture — although we're frequently contacted by people interested in them for unsuitable uses and have to turn their offers down."

inspiration

What inspires your work in general? "Natural materials, complex textures, geometry, imperfection, found objects, the Russian avant-garde. We try to pay attention to the small details when we're visiting new cities, shopping at flea markets, or just observing nature. Inspiration can be found all over the place."

scarf

The prints for the duo's series of silk screen-printed scarves, for example, were inspired by houses, footprints, and windmills.

collections

What do you collect? “Our studio and flat look like warehouses due to the amount of objects we tend to accumulate: Julia collects vintage clothes, old scarves, buttons, erasers, post cards, and old photos, but she doesn’t consider herself a true collector; she just purchases the things she likes with no further aim, for the sake of feeling surrounded by inspirational objects. Javi collects vinyl records but his goal also isn't to complete a collection. He prefers the search!”

Varda

Design or art hero: "We have two. The first is filmmaker Agnes Varda, due to her ability to express deep issues in a very simple way. She's present in all her films but not in an egocentric way. She doesn’t go seeking the perfect aesthetic but she somehow gets there. We love her energy and curiosity."

Aramburu

"The other is the Spanish painter, designer, and musician Javier Aramburu. He's an artist in the true sense of the word: His creative process doesn’t rely on the trends that seem to drive the art or music scenes. He was responsible for one of the most celebrated independent pop albums of the last decade in Spain and has also designed the most amazing record covers around."

6a

Style movement you most identify with: "We’ve always felt attracted to the members of the Bauhaus movement because of their thinking and innovative teaching methods, but we’re also very interested in anonymous designs. We bought this set of chairs and tables in a flea market in the suburbs of Stockholm because we found the simple and rough way the wood had been cut fun and charming. It was clear that it wasn't factory made but cut by hand by a non-professional."

6b

"Then, on the way back to central Stockholm, we found out that the entire set had been cut from a single piece of wood, so that every piece could fit into the others, creating some sort of puzzle! We’d love to meet the person who made it."

7b

What do you keep around your studio or home for inspiration? "Books, magazines, old postcards, pieces of fabric, and all sorts of found objects. Accumulating so much makes it really tough to keep our work space tidy, and finding things usually becomes a difficult task. Having so many inspirational things around us can easily become very distracting as well!"

8

Place you go to be inspired: "The best ideas come to us when we’re bored, and the best place for us to feel like that is a tiny village near the Mar Menor lagoon in Murcia, Spain. We spend most of the summer there away from computers, the internet, alarm clocks ... There’s absolutely no rush. We also enjoy playing around with new projects at the carpentry workshop set up by Julia’s grandfather there."

single2

Music most played while you work: A band called Single. As well as being very good friends of ours, we admire what they do because it’s always very honest and personal and not trend-driven at all. However our studio space is located in a very busy and noisy area in Madrid so sometimes we have no choice but to listen to the street musicians around or the tap dancers next door.

Ritual

Favorite design ritual: “We love to play with rubber stamps, watercolors, and silkscreens, to feel the beauty of putting our ideas down on a piece of paper, wood, or fabric. Spending the whole day at a good library is pretty enjoyable, too.”

12

What inspires your color palette? "We have this box full of threads and small pieces of fabric we’ve been collecting and sorting for a long time. So when we have to create a set of colors for a project, we open this magic box and play around with the bits and pieces inside — it’s like a game to us. It’s funny: Despite being based in Spain and living in a very colorful environment, we always tend to choose subtle, toned-down colors instead of louder ones."

13_bolsaco

SuTurno’s Bolsaco tote, which was spotted by a couple of Marc Jacobs employees on a buying trip in Madrid and launched the pair into the public eye. “It was such a good start for us as a brand and we feel so privileged to have caught the eye of MJ!”

14a

Favorite material: "Wood, cotton, watercolors, rubber stamps, and ceramics. All of them have in common a certain degree of randomness and imperfection that we love to incorporate into our designs. Those little 'beyond control' details bring some uniqueness to the objects."

14c_rubberstamp

Studies for the pair's Spring/Summer 08 collaboration with the Spanish fashion brand Loreak Mendian. "We aren't tempted to move into the fashion world," says Bayo. "There are things about it we dislike, like the fact that you must produce collections every three or four months that soon become out of date. But we do enjoy collaborating with other designers."

15_AnniAlbers1926

Piece you wish you’d made: “Anni Albers’ textiles. We are so in love with her textile work, and we admired her even more after finding out about her life and relationship with her husband Josef. He seemed not to take her work very seriously, and we believe she was actually more talented than her husband was.”

16_marianne

Favorite everyday object: "Porcelain cups by Marianne Viktor. She's a good friend of ours from Denmark and a great crafts designer. We have a few of her cups at home and we like to use them every morning. They're just the right size, and they have this clever holder-less design that allows you to handle them tightly even when the cups are hot."

17_TapioWirkkala

Favorite design object: “Tapio Wirkkala’s laminated birch-wood dish. It’s such a clever use of the wood’s natural shape. A perfect example of what we mentioned before about how some materials bring out some interesting qualities and randomness in a product.”

lucierie

Last great exhibition you saw: “The British potter Lucie Rie’s exhibition at The National Arts Center in Tokyo earlier this year. It was so impressive that we didn’t want to leave the museum, we kept going back and forth trying to stop contemplating her awesome work.”

19b_lucierie_buttons

“As well as her beautiful ceramics, we love her work as a button designer, which was also displayed at the exhibition. We're obsessed with buttons as well.”

20_favoritshop

Favorite shop: “It’s pleasant to visit places like Dover Street Market in London or Fennica in Tokyo, but we can hardly afford to shop there. Our favorite places for real shopping are those that allow us to play treasure hunter. We love going through lots of useless and terrible things until we suddenly fall in love with something that somehow grabs our attention or that we believe will look different in another context. It’s much cheaper and far more exciting. Things have changed but some junk stores and flea markets in the Alicante area were our favorite shopping spots a few years ago. Hell’s Kitchen indoor market in New York is also at the top of our list.”

21_madrid+

Thing you love most about Madrid: “There’s an good balance between the advantages of a big city and a more human way of living. Even some central areas still have a certain small village vibe that we like. You can still find traditional restaurants, shops, and artisan workshops — some of which are more than 150 years old — but then a 10-minute tube ride will take you to the most modern shops and clubs. Thing you hate most about it: We live in the center of Madrid and it’s a very noisy and messy place. We couldn’t believe it when we visited Japan and noticed it was just the opposite. We jealously witnessed how strict they are about keeping the city nice when we saw the neighbors of some areas cleaning the streets together.

23

Last thing you bought on eBay: “A vintage head from the 1950s. We couldn’t help wrapping one of our scarves around the head as a turban. We keep the head in our studio and it cheers us up every time we look at it.”

27_SuTurno

Right now, SuTurno is: "Planning to exhibit some of our work from the last few years under the theme of repeated patterns. It would be really nice to see all of these pieces in different formats and materials displayed together. We also want to produce a new bag very soon!"