THE OUTSIDER COMES IN LIKE A STORM. At
saturation point‚ when most of the reinvention‚ the studio
space‚ raw materials and press coverage have been accounted for
already. A riveting design concept shyly steps forward. To cover a
classic or to give it exuberance‚ out of nowhere this feisty and
unfettered ornamental experimentation with architectural
moldings arrives.
From London‚ the outfit Solomon & Wu’s irresistibly radical
but well mannered manifest sounds simply like this: “I wanted
to do something which was definitely modern, definitely
contemporary‚ that also had enough reference back to what had
been before‚” says cofounder Jake Solomon, describing his initial
creative impulse.
A trained sculptor‚ his hands familiar with furniture making‚
he was in the Louvre two years ago‚ absorbed by the architectural
landscape of the space. “I became much more interested in the
moldings than the exhibitions, and I thought 'Why has no one
done this same level of detail, which is fantastic and incredbily
ornate, why has no one done it in a modern style?'"
After several maddening trials‚ and collaborative chemistry
with business partner‚ Michael Wu‚ the process of carving‚
refining‚ shaping and editing generations of massive chunks of
fibrous plaster resulted in a novel debut collection. Free falling
modernist works that teeter between ice sculpture and geometry
incarnate. One gets the impression that centuries of florid
decorative adornments are ready to strip o; the binding black
tie, and party.
