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03.01.22

Up and Coming

A Young, Milan-Based Designer Inspired by the Brutalist Architecture of Eastern Europe

There are two distinct threads that run through the work of Milan-based, Macedonia-born designer Daniel Nikolovski. The first is a penchant for storytelling. His objects and furniture all seem to point to an obscure reference or emerge from a well-thought-out backstory; the forms that make up his EYE Lamps, for example, were inspired by Yugoslavian monuments, like the Brutalist buildings Kenzo Tange constructed in Nikolovski’s hometown of Skopje following an earthquake that decimated the city in 1963. The other major tenet of his work is craftsmanship, which is actually the reason he ended up in Italy at all.
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02.24.22

Up and Coming

Olivia Cognet’s Very Provence–Meets–Palm Springs Ceramic Murals

With a color palette drawn largely from nature, Olivia Cognet’s aesthetic of geometric lines and sculptural excrescences is heightened by elegant crackle glazes and tactile textures. Exploring a dialogue between Brutalist influences and feminine discourse, architecture and art, Cognet's often large-scale works — from lamps to monumental bas-reliefs — embrace the irregular, inspired by her design idols, Roger Capron and Jean Derval.
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02.10.22

Up and Coming

The Former Gucci Model Turned Textile Designer Making Waves in London

British designer Tom Atton Moore creates tactile rugs inspired by painterly abstraction. On view through February 20 at BC in Los Angeles, Moore's new collection was inspired by the patterns he observed in the swirling chemicals on the surface of a countryside pond during the pandemic lockdown. We recently chatted with the former high-fashion model and illustration graduate to gain insight into his material world and self-taught design process, which began with the purchase of a tufting gun from eBay and watching how-to videos on YouTube. 
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Shane Gabier ceramics
02.01.22

Up and Coming

A New York Fashion Designer Reinvents Himself With Clay

You may know Shane Gabier as the designer behind the fashion label Creatures of the Wind, where, since 2008, he has been churning out sharply tailored avant-garde collections for New York Fashion Week and earning accolades like an LVMH prize shortlist. But if you’ve kept up with his work more recently, you would know that fashion isn’t Gabier's only talent — he’s also a budding ceramicist.
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01.06.22

Up and Coming

With Its Whimsical Ceramics and Mirrored Lounges, Project 213A is Bringing a Bit of Joy to 2022

If you needed more proof that we're living in something of a golden age of small-batch production, look no further than the new design brand and housewares shop Project 213A, which was founded in 2020 by four friends and is based between London, Paris, and Portugal. In the last two years they've built up an enviable portfolio of that mixes the kind of ceramic silhouettes that are popular right now with wild cards that keep you guessing like a fully mirrored low lounge, a multicolored tiled bench, and a chestnut wood milking stool, with one lone leg carved in the shape of a foot.
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01.04.22

Up and Coming

In Mexico City, An Up-and-Coming Design Studio Inspired by Institutional Aesthetics

The objects and furniture made by the Mexico City–based design studio Panorammma are difficult to pin in one particular box. Their concepts pivot from material focus — such as in their Neolithic Thinker chair, an upturned U-shaped seat made of volcanic tezontle stone — to abstract ideas, like the Sisyphean Table, a glass-topped Vignelli-esque cocktail table inspired by the concept of the absurd. But the thread that connects all of these approaches is a steady preoccupation with narrative and memory.
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11.10.21

Up and Coming

This Belgian Designer’s Color-Blocked Kitchens Channel the De Stijl Movement

“My first study was the preservation of paintings,” Dries Otten tells us over the phone from his home in Antwerp, Belgium. “But I decided it was too boring — your job is only appreciated when it's invisible!” Since hanging up his white gloves, though, Otten’s work has been impossible to ignore — bright, color-blocked interiors and furniture that set him apart from the neutral-obsessed minimalists that dominate contemporary Belgian design.
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Nick Pourfard furniture
10.26.21

Up and Coming

Nick Pourfard, the Guitar-Maker Turned Furniture Designer On the Rise

Skateboarding gave Nick Pourfard his foundation in design. Building ramps and obstacles for his friends provided an early education in how to put materials together effectively, and old skateboard decks are what he’s used to construct the body of the guitars he’s been producing since 2014. Recently, this San Diego–based luthier (maker of stringed instruments) has moved into furnishings, bringing his meticulous skills and try-it-and-see approach with him.
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10.25.21

Up and Coming

This Swedish Duo is Giving a Second Life To Industrial Waste

Axel Landström and Victor Isaksson Pirtti founded their design practice Lab La Bla in 2018 but their connection sparked way before that. The pair first met, hilariously, as toddlers in their native town of Luleå on Sweden’s Lapland coast, a remote region known for its subarctic climate, dense spruce forests, and history of iron mining — all topics Landström and Isaksson Pirtti continue to draw on in their practice.
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09.29.21

Up and Coming

Meet the Chair Equivalent of Freezing Your Issey Miyake Pants in Resin

It was an interest in fashion, coupled with a job in retail, that first sparked Brooklyn designer Michal Cihlar’s fascination with furniture. At the time, he was studying for a degree in architecture at NYU, but he wasn’t finding satisfaction with the drawn-out process required to realize buildings. Instead, it was a part-time job at the cult fashion shop Opening Ceremony that opened his eyes to more creative possibilities. With carpentry skills gleaned from a sculpture course and access to deadstock fabric, Cihlar started making playfully bulbous pieces that nod to the way textiles move and bounce on the body.
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