Designday 09 - Celebrating Original Design
Photography Nic Staveley
Nine of New Zealand’s top fashion designers collaborate with leading Auckland design showrooms to create unforgettable installations. We take a look at the results.
Designday says it all. It’s a day for design. While in the pages of Urbis we can show you stunning designs, those pictures will still lack that tangible element where you are able to sit in the chairs or touch the fabrics. Designday is how we get design out of the pages of the magazine and into the real world. Designday visitors have the opportunity to see phenomenal creative concepts, dreamt up by nine of the country’s top fashion designers and exhibited in Auckland’s top design showrooms. Not only can guests then lounge on a Design Denmark chair or lean on the edge of a Poggenpohl kitchen but they are also immersed in the entertainment of design for a day. In recognition of winning the best installation by a fashion designer, Lucie Boshier, paired with Natuzzi, was presented with a stunning piece of jewellery by Orsini.
Apartmento/Crane Brothers
Apartmento and Crane Brothers were a natural pairing. Both are New Zealand- owned-and-run design companies that focus on simple but perfectly proportioned forms. As designer Murray Crane explains: “It’s all about tailoring.”
For Designday, Crane Brothers created a makeshift workroom within the Apartmento store. A sewing machine, racks of fabric and an expert tailor, cutting and sewing, completed the scene. The architectural shapes of the brown paper patterns took on the look of exquisite paper artworks complementing the elegant screenprints on cloth hung about the space. Crane’s concept was to allow “the sleekness and minimalism of Apartmento to be transformed with images of ‘the workroom’ and ‘factory’.”
The elegant, layered installation made a big impression on Designday judge Tim Walker. “A marvellous match. A carefully considered synergy made for a space charged with a very material sense of tonality, bespoke intrigue and a confident ease. The fact the guys were on hand, with the patterns, paraphernalia and magic of ‘making’ was a fine touch.”
into getting it just so.
Coast/Emma Kate Bamford
Once Designday vistors reached Coast, they didn’t go anywhere for a while. The showroom which specialises in outdoor furniture was decked out with sand, tropical plants and given a design makeover that transformed this space into a beach house. It’s effect was pronounced, visitors quickly settled into the oversized beanbags and loungers, eased their sandals off their feet and wiggled their toes into the sand and relaxed. The ‘Coast Island Cocktail’ put on by 42 Below also helped in taking the edge off. In no time, everyone was on island time.
This installation was in some ways more subtle than some of the others as there wasn’t such an obvious sculptural insertion but Urbis editor and Designday judge Nicole Stock explains: “Emma Kate’s installation may seem subtle to a visitor who hasn’t been here before, but to anyone who has previously visited the shop, the difference is remarkable. The casual New Zealand bach has been seamlessly incorporated into Coast’s compact urban space.”
Designday judge Tim Walker summed it up simply by saying, “Cool, coherent, totally convincing space.”
The Westin/Zambesi
The Westin Hotel was the only Designday venue that wasn’t strictly a design showroom. Its design credentials were obvious however with its stunning architectural design by Peddle Thorp with interiors by Martin Hughes.
The Westin sits alongside the water in Auckland’s Viaduct and Zambesi took this theme to heart when they designed their installation. Zambesi chose to step outside of the central lounge that was the proposed site for their installation, and instead spilled a catwalk of masked mannequins out into the central pool. The faintly rippling water wet the trouser legs and further drew attention to the layered textures in this installation.
The spare and elegant installation shows that you don’t need multitudes of complicated elements to get a complex idea across. Rather, this was an experiment in minimalism and it proved that less can indeed be more. Designday judge Tim Walker commented: “Inspired choice of venue and a suitably spare installation. Intriguing; did the various degrees of wetness imply some degree of narrative, left unclear? There was no soundtrack but a strong sense of a score nonetheless. The floating signage, which seemed to navigate itself over the full expanse of the pond, was a deft touch.”
Design Denmark/Lonely Hearts
Lonely Hearts roared into the Design Denmark showroom in Ponsonby with their installation of “a day at the motocross”. The best of Scandinavian Furniture and accessories collided with the youthful enthusiasm of the Lonely Hearts design team with this grunty, adrenaline-fuelled installation.As Lonely Hearts explained before the event, “Night transcends day as the showroom gets blacked out in favour of LCD lights in beanbags, and the brightness of the new Lonely Hearts sportswear range of protective clothing. Smoke machines, mannequins lining the window and an energy-filled atmosphere will leave guests feeling like they just walked out of a highly fashionable speedway.”
The mannequins were posed on motocross bikes and as biking fans, with the atmosphere created with the smoke machine and the lighting, so the installation seemed both charged with energy and
eerily still. Design Denmark furniture, products and lighting were used to great effect in the installation building up a motocross landscape despite being refined, generally interior-based Scandinavian designs. An interesting contrast was created between rough-and-ready and sleek subtlety.
Poggenpohl/Huffer
One of the more perplexing (but incredibly enjoyable) installations was Huffer’s Free the Fish campaign at Poggenpohl.
Poggenpohl’s sleek and functional minimalist kitchens were contrasted with ocean imagery set in antique frames that gave the entire space loads of personality. Before you even entered the showroom, visitors were bombarded with ‘protesters’ waving neon ‘free the fish’ placards.
Poggenpohl’s recently launched Porsche kitchen, complete with flat-screen TVs embedded in the workstation walls were utilised by Huffer to show their ‘free the fish’ fashion show. Before the Day, Huffer designer Dan Buckley said, “Expect fishy dishes, loud music, and lots of energy. Get wacky and free your own ‘inner fish’.” Tim Walker, Designday judge, was taken with this energy and proclaimed this a “cool brand/design exercise”. Adding that, “The ‘protest’ placards outside announced the manifesto-like theme immediately on arrival. A simple but emphatic ‘free your inner fish’ Huffer presence in Poggenpohl-land. Distinctive and fresh.” We’re not sure you could say the same about the large tuna displayed on ice throughout the day, though.
Matisse & Kouzina/Karen Walker
Karen Walker has become one of New Zealand’s most recognisable, and coveted, fashion brands. Her range has since spilled out beyond the boundaries of clothing into jewellery, sunglasses and a range of soft hues for Resene paints. Her connection with interiors, then, is strong and her installation concept, designed by Katie Lockhart, embraced this side of the Karen Walker brand. As they were pairing with Matisse kitchen company Kouzina, kitchen utensils were painted with the Karen Walker Resene new range of colours which emphasised their graphic forms. This sense of colourful whimsy continued outside with an Alice in Wonderland-esque garden bar complete with a pot chair from Matisse.
Designday judge Tim Walker had this to say: “A very complete, elegant and highly articulated scheme ranging across the garden, entrance gallery and showroom. The decison to focus on Karen Walker’s Resene range, and coupling that palette to kitchen domestic items was a great way of connecting the brand(s) with Matisse’s, even if the fashion was missed.”
Inovo/Jaeha
Jaeha and Inovo’s concept centred around the thought of “what would extraordinary people do in their private time?” The private sphere of people’s lives was wrenched open as mannequins depicted scenes from real life, scenes that happen only behind closed doors. The often provocative and always humorous displays were scattered throughout the large showroom creating a sense of discovery as you wandered through the showroom – one in the midst of a line of toilets, another in a glass shower. Kim Crawford wine was served throughout the day as Designday guests peeked at mannequin girls getting ready for a big night out, or a couple’s dynamics in the home. Judge Tim Walker noted, “A strong sense of a coherent narrative linking the tableaux through the shop… Extraordinary textiles and fashion, inserted with an insistent and consistent sense of theatre through the Inovo showroom.” (Perhaps more soap opera than Shakespeare.) What Nicole Stock, Urbis editor, particularly liked was the “contrast between the rich and textural fabrics alongside the smooth and shiny surfaces of basins and tapware”.
Cite/World
The affinity between Cite and World is obvious. Not only do both design companies have a focus on inventive forms and colour, but Francis Hooper, designer of World, collects the Vitra models that Cite stocks.
The title of World and Cite’s installation was Transformation. As Hooper explains, “We transformed everything on the day, from products, chairs, lights, clothing, objects and the space itself into one silver factory space that could be used (sat on, worn and enjoyed) or just looked at as a beautiful space.” He goes on to explain that they wanted to “show shape and form in its purest way and show how we react to objects that are the same but now are different”. Designday judge Tim Walker noted, “Good, simple, bold idea beautifully realised. Signage in silver on window and the largely empty silver cube (with 3 or 4 silver World shirts on a hanging rack) provided a dramatic reinforcement of World’s ‘Factory of ideas and Experience’ credo, ‘framing’ the Cite environment at the rear of store.”
Natuzzi/Lucie Boshier Couture
The 1930s Cotton Club was brought alive in the installation created by Lucie Boshier and Natuzzi. The prohibition club was always a place of mystery and exclusiveness and Boshier brought this into the 21st century by blacking out the entire Natuzzi showroom with a side door as the only entrance. Outside scantily dressed flapper girls let visitors in, first to an anteroom where XX and her dog XX filled out your ‘prescription’ before allowing you into the showroom. Live music, Marmalade Spiced Chai gin cocktails served in true prohibition fashion from a teapot into tea cups, and fully kitted-out actors made the installation a complete, immersive experience. Designday judge, Tim Walker, said, “A total sensory narrative experience. Seamless. Completely coherent effort showing huge attention to detail and ‘character’. The production effortlessly transformed the showroom.” Judging partner Nicole Stock said, “Everything was thought of and considered from details like matchboxess to the entire store being blacked out and transformed. Actors, music, props all created a dramatic atmosphere. It had everything.” Diamond Dance Entertainment, Mod’s Hair, and Phoenix Cosmetics were all instrumental to pulling together this installation.
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