May 5, 2021 In asloves, English

#ASLOVES
Wood Grain Foam!


This month #asloves the wood grain effect foam furniture collection ‘seam of skin’ by Japanese designer, Chiaki Yoshihara. Using a unique artisanal handmade process, she transforms blocks of polystyrene insulating foam into one-off design objects! Enjoy the slideshow of screenshots from the video she made with @bashhhhy below to see the whole process, and discover her technique!

Photo Credit: All images courtesy Chiaki Yoshihara, screenshots from video by @bashhhhy

May 3, 2021 In English

Story of the Month
Luxury Fashion Cafés on the Rise …

The luxury fashion café is not a new phenomenon, the original, « Le Café Blanc » was established by Marie Courregès, daughter of Coqueline Courregès next to their Paris boutique on François 1er, in 1996. And, like everything the Courregès dynasty created, it was revolutionary!    It should come as no surprise, after the year we’ve had, that the idea is returning at a time when people want to feel a stronger physical connection to their preferred brand - the luxury fashion café environment is, after all, one of ultimate fandom. One need only to look at the role branding plays in the napkins, swizzle sticks, cups, glasses, plates… The possibilities are endless for the fashion fan in our social media savvy world.
The first Saint Laurent Café opened during Paris fashion week in 2019. A perfect exercise in top-to-toe branding, with minute attention to detail. The interior mirrors the Saint Laurent retail concept perfectly, with black surfaces, black and white marble, neons, and black logo branded cups and bottle openers, plus, the promise of a new playlist weekly from creative director Anthony Vaccarello for free via a QR code download! Its location, just behind their store on Faubourg Honoré, promises foot traffic from the shoppers heading to the Jardin des Tuileries for a well-deserved coffee break...
After the phenomenal Insta-success of the Fendi pop-up café on the fifth floor of Harrods, a collaboration with Guatemalan-American artist Joshua Vides, also in 2019, Harrods welcomed the first Tiffany’s Blue Box Café pop-up in Europe in 2020. The original Blue Box Café opened in 2018 in New York, followed by the first Blue Box Café in Asia in Hong Kong in 2019 and The Tiffany Café in Tokyo. After the acquisition of Tiffany's by LVMH was finalized earlier this year, it is surely only a matter of time before a more permanent Tiffany's Café opens up in Europe!
One of the newest luxury fashion cafés comes from LVMH who opened its first Louis Vuitton café - Café V - in February this year, in their new Osaka flagship store designed by Jun Aoki. A remarkable building that references the city’s historical shipping trade, by cladding the exterior in symbolic ship sails. The café is invite-only for customers of the brand, giving it, even more, fashion-fan-FOMO, and sits on the top of the building with a magnificent terrace. Above the bar are fluttering sheets of dichroic material that bring to mind our iconic Magic Mirror film, whilst referencing Aoki’s new Tokyo flagship for Vuitton, which is clad in undulating dichroic water-shaped glass tiles.
Exclusivity is something that will always appeal to lovers of luxury - if something is difficult to get, we couldn't desire it more! The idyllic Café V environment is sure to appeal to the Tokyo-ite as a perfect luxurious escape from the hustle and bustle of the city below.
Browns London is the latest luxury brand to launch a café, having just opened their brand new concept store in London’s Brook Street, entrusting the café to Native, to house the Native at Browns. Native are renowned for their wild approach to food, with a propensity to forage for ingredients and a forward-thinking zero-waste policy. This goes to the core of fashion's important sustainable discourse, serving nose-to-tail in a space decorated with sustainable practice in mind. We can’t wait to visit and see what’s on the wild menu!   The luxury fashion café interior is the perfect place to instill the material identity of the brand and embodies this concept via the food, the packaging, the furniture and the architecture. In our increasingly image driven world, especially after a drought of real lived-experiences, the luxury fashion café could be the perfect environment for loyal fans of brands to experience the unique luxury vision of their preferred luxury fashion house.
Here is a small selection of materials that we offer for this kind of environment, tailored towards hospitality applications, eco-conception, and the constraints required for this kind of business - note the individual images can be clicked on for more information - Do not hesitate to contact us for your material identity research, we will be happy to help you translate and materialize your creative vision.

Credit Photo: All photos courtesy the brands cited

April 6, 2021 In French

Design
Memphis fête ses 40 ans !

Le groupe Memphis est né au cours de l'hiver 1980/81, lorsqu'un groupe de jeunes designers désireux de s'éloigner du design industriel s'est formé autour du célèbre architecte et designer italien Ettore Sottsass. Présentant leur première collection à la galerie Arc'74 de Milan en septembre 1981, ils ont rapidement attiré l'attention de la presse internationale avec leurs couleurs criardes, leurs motifs audacieux et leur célébration du pop et du post-modernisme. Ils voulaient tester et casser les limites du mauvais goût et ont atteint uen grande notoriété en 1982 lorsque Karl Lagerfeld a décoré son appartement de Monte Carlo entièrement avec les créations Memphis, un an seulement avant de présenter sa première collection en tant que directeur de la création chez Chanel à Paris.
Le groupe a été dissous en 1987, après seulement 7 ans de travail intense, leur impact se fait encore sentir aujourd'hui dans le monde de la décoration intérieure. Au cours des dix dernières années, la demande de pièces convoitées de Sottsass et du groupe Memphis a été énorme.   Ici, chez American Supply, nous admirons le travail du groupe Memphis depuis toujours, leur utilisation inhabituelle des matériaux et leur audace nous séduisent. Pendant la semaine d'art de la FIAC en 2015, nous avons créé un meuble bibliothèque inspiré de Sottsass en mousse bicolore ultra haute densité, faisant référence à sa bibliothèque Carlton et au buffet Casablanca, présenté lors de l'exposition de Maroussia Rebecq ‘UP-CYCLED ART, Eloge de l’Emprunt’ à la galerie Le Cœur à Paris.Selon nous, cette dernière est l'un des produits phares du groupe Memphis, et nous sommes très heureux de lui rendre hommage.
Pour célébrer le 40e anniversaire du groupe Memphis, la galerie du Vitra Design Museum à Weil am Rhein, en Allemagne, présente des pièces emblématiques, de tous les designers du groupe Memphis, avec des dessins et des éphémérides historiques. Il s'agit d'une occasion rare de voir ces pièces de près. Heureusement, l'exposition durera jusqu'en janvier 2022.   Selon les mots de la critique italienne de design, Barbara Radice :   « Memphis a été créée avec l'idée de changer le visage du design international, et elle a choisi le moyen le plus efficace, le plus direct et le plus dangereux pour y parvenir »
Visitez le site web du musée pour planifier votre visite.

Photo Credit: All photos courtesy Vitra Design Museum Gallery unless otherwise cited

April 6, 2021 In French

Story of the Month
Champi
à la Mode

Collages de Seana Gavin, 'Mindful Mushroom' et 'Model Mushroom' présentés dans 'Mushrooms : The Art, Design and Future of Fungi' à Somerset House, Londres, 2020.

(Images : Seana Gavin)

Les champignons ont fait leur apparition dans les tendances du luxe depuis un certain temps déjà, les maisons de mode les ayant choisis comme visuels, notamment Paul Smith, Gucci, Fiorucci, Stüssy, Marc Jacobs et Loewe. Super fascinante et éternellement incomprise, la famille des champignons est une source d'inspiration pour de nombreuses raisons, et pas seulement pour son aspect extraterrestre et ses propriétés psychotropes !   Le mycélium, la partie végétative du champignon, constituée d'une masse d'hyphes ramifiés et filiformes, a fait la une des journaux ce mois-ci en tant que matériau biologique émergent !

Mycélium, la partie végétative filiforme d'un champignon (image : GETTY Images)

Le 11 mars, la maison de luxe Hermès a annoncé qu'elle allait commencer à utiliser le cuir bio-fabriqué du nom de Fine Mycelium™ - un matériau qu'elle a développé en collaboration avec Myco Works, en Californie, au cours des trois dernières années. Il est donc évident que les alternatives de cuir bio-fabriqué sont complètement acceptées par l'industrie du luxe. Le matériau "Sylvania" de Myco Works est fabriqué en Californie, avec du mycélium cultivé sur mesure, précisément ajusté pour s’adapter aux normes de performance les plus élevées, avant d'être tanné et fini dans les ateliers français par les artisans d'Hermès selon leurs savoir-faire uniques. Le premier article fabriqué avec Sylvania, le sac Victoria classique, sera disponible à la vente fin 2021.

Reishi Fine Mycelium, une solution de cuir biofabriqué de première qualité par Myco Works (images : Myco Works)

« La vision et les valeurs de MycoWorks font écho à celles d'Hermès : une forte fascination pour la matière première naturelle et sa transformation, une quête de l'excellence, dans le but d'assurer le meilleur usage des objets et de maximiser leur longévité. Avec Sylvania, Hermès est au cœur de ce qu'elle a toujours été : l'innovation en devenir. » Pierre-Alexis Dumas, directeur artistique d'Hermès

  Une semaine plus tard, le 17 mars, la pionnière du développement durable Stella McCartney, connue pour son refus d'utiliser le cuir et les produits dérivés des animaux dans ses créations, a annoncé sa propre gamme à base de mycélium, en utilisant Mylo.

Stella McCartney x Mylo™️ (images : Stella McCartney)

En 2016, elle a été la pionnière d'une collaboration avec Bolt Threads, en Californie, qui a donné naissance au 'Mylo', un simili-cuir biologique. Au début, c'était un matériau plutôt rigide, qu'elle a utilisé pour créer un prototype de son sac Falabella pour l'exposition "Fashioned From Nature" du Victoria & Albert Museum en 2018. L'automne dernier, elle a fait appel à Kering, Adidas et Lululemon pour investir dans Bolt Threads et aujourd'hui, elle sort les premières pièces de son prêt-à-porter en simili-cuir beaucoup plus souple à base de mycélium.   « Ces pièces rares et exclusives Mylo™️ incarnent notre engagement commun avec Bolt Threads à innover dans une industrie de la mode plus douce - une industrie qui voit la naissance de matériaux magnifiques et luxueux par opposition à la mort de nos semblables et de la planète. » Stella McCartney

Mylo Un-Leather (image : Mylo)

Ce n'est certainement que le début de la révolution des matériaux biotechnologiques et biofabriqués à base de mycélium ... Pour voir une sélection de nos éco-matériaux, cliquez sur ce lien !
April 6, 2021 In English

Story of the Month
Mushrooms
à la Mode

Seana Gavin collages, ‘Mindful Mushroom’ & 'Model Mushroom' shown in 'Mushrooms: The Art, Design and Future of Fungi' at Somerset House, London, July - September, 2020. Images courtesy of the artist.

Mushrooms have been forming under the surface of luxury trends for a while now, with fashion houses picking them as visuals including Paul Smith, Gucci, Fiorucci, Stüssy, Marc Jacobs and Loewe. Forever fascinating, and eternally misunderstood, the fungi family are inspirational for many reasons, not just for their alien appearance and psychotropic properties!   Mycelium, the vegetative part of the fungus, consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like hyphae, has been forming on the headlines this month as an emerging bio-based material!

Mycelium, the thread-like vegetative part of a fungus (image courses GETTY Images)

On March 11th, when luxury house Hermes announced they were to begin using the bio-fabricated leather solution Fine Mycelium™ - a material they developed in collaboration with Myco Works, California, over the last three years - it was a clear sign that bio-fabricated leather alternatives were being accepted by the luxury industry. Myco Works’ ‘Sylvania’ material is fabricated in California, with custom-grown mycelium that is finely tuned for fullness and the highest performance standards, before being tanned and finished in French ateliers by the Hermes artisans to their unique specification. The first item to be made using ‘Sylvania’, the classic Victoria Bag, will be available to purchase by the end of 2021.

Reishi Fine Mycelium, a premium, biofabricated leather solution by Myco Works. (photos courtesy Myco Works)

“MycoWorks’ vision and values echo those of Hermès: a strong fascination with natural raw material and its transformation, a quest for excellence, with the aim of ensuring that objects are put to their best use and that their longevity is maximized. With Sylvania, Hermès is at the heart of what it has always been: innovation in the making.” Pierre-Alexis Dumas, Hermès Artistic Director

  A week later, on March 17th, sustainable pioneer Stella McCartney, renowned for her refusal to use leather and animal-derived products in her designs, announced her own mycelium-based range, using Mylo.

Stella McCartney x Mylo™️ garments (photos courtesy Stella McCartney)

In 2016 McCartneybegan a pioneering collaboration with Bolt Threads in California, which has resulted in the bio un-leather ‘Mylo’. At first, it was a rather stiff material, which they used to create a Mylo prototype of her Falabella bag for the Victoria & Albert Museum’s “Fashioned From Nature” exhibit in 2018. Last Fall she brought on board Kering, Adidas and Lululemon to invest in Bolt Threads and now she releases the first pieces of ready to wear mycelium-based leather pieces, using a newer, softer, version of Mylo.   “These rare, exclusive Mylo™️ pieces embody our shared commitment with Bolt Threads to innovate a kinder fashion industry – one that sees the birth of beautiful, luxurious materials as opposed to the deaths of our fellow creatures and planet.” Stella McCartney

Mylo un-leather (photos courtesy Mylo)

This is surely just the beginning of the mycelium bio-fabricated biotech material revolution … To see a selection of our eco-materials, click this link !
April 6, 2021 In English

Design
40 years of Memphis!

The Memphis Group emerged in the winter of 1980/81 when a group of young designers eager to break away from industrial design formed around the celebrated Italian architect and designer Ettore Sottsass. Presenting their first collection in Milan’s Arc’74 gallery in September 1981 they quickly garnered the attention of the international press with their garish colours, bold patterns and celebration of pop and post-modernism. They wanted to test and break the limits of bad taste and reached infamy in 1982 when Karl Lagerfeld decorated his Monte Carlo apartment entirely in Memphis designs, just one year before showing his debut collection as creative director at Chanel in Paris.
Disbanding in 1987, after only 7 years of intense work, their impact is still being felt today in the interior design world. There has been a huge demand in the last 10 years for coveted Sottsass and Memphis Group pieces.   Here at American Supply, we have admired the work of the Memphis Group for some time, their unusual use of materials and daring speaks to us. During the FIAC art week in 2015, we created a Sottsass inspired bookcase from ultra-high-density foam in bi-colour, referencing his Carlton bookcase and Casablanca sideboard, for Maroussia Rebecq’s exhibition ‘UP-CYCLED ART, Eloge de l’Emprunt’ at Le Coeur gallery in Paris. For us, the Carlton bookcase is one of the defining products of the Memphis Group, and we were very happy to pay homage to it.
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Memphis Group, the Vitra Design Museum Gallery in Weil am Rhein, Germany, is showcasing iconic pieces, from all of the Memphis Group designers, with drawings and historical ephemera. This is a rare opportunity to see this many Memphis pieces up close, so thankfully the exhibition will run until January 2022.   In the words of the Italian design critic, and wife of Ettore Sottsass, Barbara Radice:   “Memphis was started with the idea of changing the face of international design, and it chose the most effective, direct and hazardous way to do so”
Visit the museum’s website to plan your visit.

Photo Credit: All photos courtesy Vitra Design Museum Gallery unless otherwise cited