#creator issue

How do you define ‘The art of life’? How would you describe the style of Amabro’s products?  Our brand's concept is appreciating the four seasons and enriching the hearts of families with hand-made pieces. Japanese treat design and art as a part of a daily life in our culture. Even though in a different form, Amabro proposes the mutual feelings that design and art feed our life. Amabro aims at introducing art in your life.

Amabro Lifestyle Select Shop — BRICK & MORTAR

We absolutely love the Japanese vibes in Amabro’s MAME, CHOKU and NAMASU collection. In your opinion, what makes Japanese design so special and popular among consumers?  In my opinion, this is because a great number of designs reflect the dedication of Japanese to delicacy and theories. In our brand, among CHOKU, MAME, NAMASU, the most popular one is MAME. The main reason is that the shape of MAME is very easy to understand. For example, it has the shape of Fuji Mountain and peach. As for gilding, the most popular design is the one with dots pattern, which is eye catching and easy to attract female’s attention.

NAMASU

What made you start designing and selling the adorable baby clothing and products? What makes these products the ideal presents for new parents? Our baby goods are designed from the perspectives of children but not adult’s. “Even children want to be fashionable!” – this is our design approach. Therefore, instead of childish design and colours, we use those that are usually used in adult’s fashion.

(L) BAB Socks  (R) Leggings

(L) BAB Blocks  (R) HONEY Tee

Amabro’s Crystal Coaster and stone magnets are so unique and striking. What inspires you to have such designs?  We saw some agate accessories in some advertisement and wondered if agate, which is used in Crystal Coaster, could be used as interior design. As it works well with glass, we made it into a coaster. In the same way of thinking, we would like to make natural stones into something more than just for appreciation, something that can be used in daily life. In the end, we decided to make the stones into magents.

(L) PUMPKIN Magnet  (R) PUMPKIN Magnet — Chess / Safari

STONE Magnet

If you are asked to name some Amabro’s items that you think every household should own, what will they be and why?  We hope that Amabro’s products could enrich customers’ lives. Among our products, CHOKU and MAME, in the series of Japan Made, reproduce the Japanese classic pattern and hence bring the sense of Japan classical aesthetics and traditional culture. We wish that, in addition to Japanese, foreigners could be interested in this.

CHOKU, MAME and NAMASU Collection

Official website of Amabro:

www.amabro.com

All Photos © Amabro

Text by Alison Tse

Could you briefly introduce your products? Chouchette was started with the mission of fostering collaboration between contemporary artists and traditional artisans, to produce high quality contemporary accessories by utilising an ancient wood block printing method, developed and practiced in Anatolia since 7000 BC.

Chouchette illustrations are wood block printed with organic dyes on 100% natural, unbleached cotton.

L: ‘Lamp’ Black Large Bag & ‘Lamp’ Black Espadrille R: ‘Stuck to the floor’ White Large Bag & ‘Stuck to the Floor’ White Espadrille

Every hand-printed accessory is a limited edition, in order to give the conscientious buyer something unique in the true sense of the word. Due to the nature of wood block printing, each accessory carries its own identity - every artist and artwork is named on its accompanying hangtag.

Chouchette Production Site in Tokat, Turkey

Woodblock Printing

What message would you like to convey through your product? Art & Artisans We love art and believe in a world full of art and artisans.

Design & Beauty Chouchette creates stylish and environmentally conscious accessories for women who want a better life for all. We too love beautiful products. We too think organic. And we too believe fairness is never out of fashion.

Eco-friendly Our beginning point is to create high quality and eco-friendly products. We believe in unique artistic and timeless accessories that express creativity and evoke personal style without sacrificing the environment for fashion.

‘Lamp’ Turquoise Large Bag & ‘Lamp’ Turquoise Espadrille

There is a nomadic vibe in your products. Could you introduce your design of patterns that looks very exotic to urbanites? Each one of our illustrations is designed exclusively by contemporary artists and we work with artists from all over the world which makes our creations one of a kind.

‘Lamp’ Yellow Cushion

‘Lamp’ Orange Cushion

Your production method is highly primitive using wood blocks and dyeing by hands. What made you insist on adopting this special production method and what does it do to your products? It’s our primary goal to work with local artisans and craftsmen, instead of mass production factories. The ancient method we have chosen for our creations means that we will always work with limited editions and that each one of our products will be unique since they are all printed and dyed and put together by hand.

Desktop photos by Chouchette

Official website of Chouchette:

www.chouchette.net

All Photos © Chouchette

Could you briefly introduce your PyroPet candle? PyroPet is a family of animal shaped candles that each reveal a surprise within as they burn. The first PyroPet product is a cute little cat called “Kisa”. (“Kisa” means “kitty” in Icelandic).

PyroPet Kisa

PyroPet Kisa Candles in Pink and Grey

What message would you like to convey through your product? PyroPet creates a new storyline to a very familiar product. Candles are usually in the area of some sweet and cute home decorations. It’s a very romantic product. PyroPet is more like a romantic film that turns into a horror satire!

Transformation of Kisa

The metallic skeleton is very refined. Did you encounter any challenges in the design and production process in order to produce such an eerily stunning candle? The main challenge was to to make a flat form that could also very easily fold into a 3D shape. Then there were other issues that had to be taken into account, such as the proximity of the skeleton to the flame and wick and how the form relates to the outer shape of the candle. My aim was to make the skeleton and the cat relate to each other, but be completely different in character, the cat being cute but the skeleton looking a bit sinister.

Transformation of Kisa

At this moment, do you have any other animal in mind that have the potential to be Devil’s pet next? Yes! The next one will be launched next spring, a bird called “Bíbí”. (“Bíbí” means “birdie” in Icelandic.) Then there are also more coming soon! But it’s still a secret what kind of animals it will be.

Desktop photo by Thorunn Arnadottir

Official website of PyroPet:

pyropetcandles.com

All Photos © PyroPet

Could you briefly introduce your Diamond Light? Diamond Lights was an idea I got when a friend was practicing sketch-techniques, his choice of object to portrait was a classic light bulb, probably one of the best-known shapes to mankind. My friends’ light bulb however, didn´t quite look as perfectly rounded as the original. Seeing that rough sketch in front of me led me to look at the light bulb in a new way.

I already knew in my heart and soul that the classic light-bub was a very important product for people in general. It´s a silent product, people see it everyday. It has been such a common product in people’s lives for over 100 years, mainly because of its ingenious function that makes it possible to get light, by the flick of a switch.

So one could believe that it would have been altered a million times over the years, but it hasn´t. There has been other shapes, longer bigger smaller etc, but they have all been made to fit inside a lamp and never thought to be a stand-alone product, never a different shape that is meant to be seen in that shape alone.

What would it mean if I changed it, I thought. Would people even notice it since they don´t notice the standard original one that much. A lot of headaches later and thanks to light bulbs being more and more visible as a stand-alone piece in people’s interiors, I thought it´s now or never. At first, I thought of, perhaps, just a cube or some other basic shapes but it didn´t give any real depth to the idea. Instead, the diamond is an intriguing shape, very well known to man and with tons of values related to it.

Photo © Frama Collection

What message would you like to convey through your product and does diamonds carry any special meaning to you? My version of the light bulb is meant to show what the original has really meant to people for all those years.

Photo © Eric Therner by Jesper Lindström

Does diamonds carry any special meaning to you? A diamond in itself a perfect symbol for something valuable. So in my design the diamond shape is incorporated in a way that makes it look as if the light bulb has been an unpolished diamond which now has been uncovered after all those years. A very symbolic idea for a product that is already used to symbolize other good ideas. It´s kind of a tribute but also is an individual product. If there had been another designers who had tried his/her luck with the light bulb before me, then I would never had have done this.

Photo © Eric Therner by Jesper Lindström

Where, in your house, would you use Diamond Lights? Well I have it in a window on a short table lamp. A nice effect from the diamonds shape is the many facets, which makes the light spread a lot differently than from a standard light bulb. This makes it fun and interesting to see what happens when you move it around.

I actually get irritated when some people say they love Diamond Lights, "because it looks really nice", the look of diamond lights is nothing, it is the idea and the reasons of why it is a diamond that are important and interesting. :)

Desktop photo by Eric Therner

Official website of Eric Therner:

erictherner.com

All Photos © Eric Therner

Feature Photos © Frama Collection