Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Further South


Here's one of a group of designers from the El Salvador. The group of them call themselves Fresh from the Tropics. I'll have to admit, I don't think I've seen any design work from El Salvador before, but their stuff is quite interesting.

The pieces are by Harry Washington and Claudia Vásquez of Due Estudio.

This one is called "Lola." They didn't have this at the show:

I love the warm, soft, handcrafted quality of it.  It looks very comfortable.  The way the two pieces fit together is suave without being pretentious.

These other two are executed on the same frame, but are completely different in character.  The one in leather called "Olga":
This one I did sit on and it's extremely comfortable.  The leather is uncommonly buttery and the shape of it cradles very nicely.  The back of it looks like a Balenciaga handbag:
There's also a matching Ottoman:


The other version is made of strips of recycled rubber from tire innertubes, and called "L'Astiko":


This guy, Washington, was really nice, too, by the way.  I felt badly for them, because when they arrived in NYC, they discovered the L'Astiko Chair they'd had shipped here ahead of them was nowhere to be found.  It was just...lost.  So they redid the Olga Ottoman at the last minute to show how it would look in the rubber.  I do think it's very cool in a sort of like Punk Rock/ Fetish sort of way.  I'm sure the rubber has the same soft cradling effect to it, although I can't help being concerned that it would get sticky on a hot day and rip the hair out of my legs.

Regardless, it's some very nice work and a great start for a young company.

Due Estudio
(El Salvador) 503-7160-3115

©2008, Ryan Witte

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