Ladies & Gentlemen’s MUJI Materials Garden Was a Match Made in Minimalist Heaven

It was a match made in minimalist heaven: For this year’s NYCxDESIGN, MUJI teamed up with Jean Lee and Dylan Davis of Ladies & Gentlemen Studio on an installation to commemorate the Japanese lifestyle brand’s ten years in the U.S. — the brand’s first-ever collaboration with an American designer. Called MUJI Materials Garden, the installation was comprised of seven vignettes showcasing MUJI collection mainstays alongside the materials from which they’re made: ceramic bowls atop shards of clay, glass tumblers on sand, plastic shelves above a layer of polypropylene pellets. A tribute to MUJI’s long-standing dedication to thoughtful, uncomplicated design, the work was likewise an expression of L&G’s own distinctive brand of playful elegance. It was also an invitation to trade the scramble of the city streets for something a little quieter — and, as Lee and Davis put it, to form a “more connected, gracious relationship” with the products that fill our homes by remembering their wild, undomesticated roots.

PHOTOS BY CHARLIE SCHUCK