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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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09.03.21

Up and Coming

This Seeded Glass Coffee Table is the Star of Courtney Applebaum’s New Furniture Collection

Inspired by an eclectic range of periods and sources — from the ancient world to Art Deco, antiques to high design — interior designer Courtney Applebaum rarely sources contemporary pieces for her interiors. “We really only use vintage. Everything else, we make,” says Applebaum. So, it only made sense for the designer to finally create her first namesake furniture collection: a series of terracotta and raffia sconces, terracotta lamps, and a glass coffee table, with more pieces on the way.
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07.28.21

Up and Coming

Lewis Kemmenoe’s Debut Collection Features One Very Of-the-Moment Material

“For as long as I remember I loved just making things,” says London-based designer Lewis Kemmenoe. “My parents told me that when I was eight, I begged them to let me go to art school, right there and then.” He may not have matriculated quite as early as he had hoped, but Kemmenoe eventually enrolled in Central Saint Martins to study Fine Art. Eighteen months ago, he began working on his first collection of furniture, a series of chairs, tables, shelving, and lighting in burl veneer, plywood, and timber — either left in its natural state or stained with linseed to highlight the grain.
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Sean Gerstley ceramics
07.07.21

Up and Coming

Sean Gerstley’s Clay Objects Live In A World Of Their Own

Following the trajectory of Delaware-born artist and designer Sean Gerstley’s practice, it feels a bit like he’s always, intentionally, scaling down. “I went to Rhode Island School of Design for architecture before finding ceramics,” he says of his creative coming-of-age. “As a kid I was, and still am, super interested in interior spaces. My ceramic practice started as sculptural work that was kind of about interiors and domestic space in abstract-installation form.”
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06.23.21

Up and Coming

Quarantine Crafts? This Dutch Design Student Built a Whole Debut Collection During Our Year of Solitude

Now that we’re a year out from some of the strictest COVID-19 lockdowns, we’re noticing that many of the projects we’re finding are a direct response to those long weeks of solitude. Our latest find, though, doesn't even have a full-fledged studio yet, being still a student at the Design Academy Eindhoven: Pepijn Fabius Clovis used his time away from campus to design and produce an entire collection for the Dutch furnishings shop Homestock.
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06.01.21

Up and Coming

A New Lighting Collection Inspired By the 1960s Modernism of Fire Island Pines

“Growing up, I always love stained glass,” recalls Peter B. Staples, discussing the early design experiments that would eventually lead to the launch of his lighting brand Blue Green Works. “I grew up in a Craftsman-style home, and one summer, my dad and I found the plans for the original stained glass lanterns. We taught ourselves how to fix and recreate them. I was probably 12 at the time and that experience really stayed with me.” But while the exercise was clearly formative, Staples would have to take a circuitous path through the New York design scene before returning to lighting. Having previously worked at The Future Perfect and Apparatus, Blue Green Works marks the first time Staples has designed a collection himself — which you would never guess just by looking at it.
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