Set designers Isabel + Helen have captured the imagination of London’s fashion players
In 2012, two young graphic design students presented a project at London’s Chelsea College of Arts. They’d concocted an idea for a Sky Arts ident that explored ‘anticipation’ through bowling balls and a steamrollered cake. They were chuffed with the result; their tutor less so: ‘Just please promise me you’ll never, ever work together again,’ he implored.
Thankfully, British set designers Isabel Gibson and Helen Chesner – AKA Isabel + Helen – ignored their tutor and, in the seven years since graduating, have enjoyed a swift ascent thanks to their combined knack for kinetic and commanding spatial design. They’ve already been around the block, working on low-key retail interventions, quirky personal projects, and space-altering fashion showstoppers. From Nike to Tate Modern, RIBA to Hermès – no job is too big or small, and few tasks out of the question.
The magic happens in their south London studio, occupying the old laundry room of a former Victorian house for ‘destitute and disorderly’ girls. Gibson and Chesner are everything but disorderly – two down-to-earth women with a bank of unearthly ideas.
Pre-Isabel + Helen, Gibson worked at multidisciplinary design agency Hotel Creative and Chesner assisted spatial designer Robert Storey. ‘We never intended to set up a studio straight away, but it was all quite natural,’ says Gibson. The duo’s first collaborative venture was an interactive ‘Constructivist Playground’ commissioned by London’s V&A Museum for a celebration of Russian art and culture in 2014.
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Denne historien er fra September 2019-utgaven av Wallpaper.
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Guiding Light - Designer Joe Armitage follows his grandfather's footsteps in India, reissuing his elegant midcentury lamp and creating a new chandelier for Nilufar Gallery
For some of us, family inheritances I tend to be burdensome, taking up space, emotionally and physically, in both our minds and attics. For the London-based designer and architect Joe Armitage, however, a family heirloom has taken him somewhere lighter and brighter, across generations and continents, and into the path of Le Corbusier. This is the story of a lamp designed by Edward Armitage in India 72 years ago, which has today been expanded into a collection of lights by his grandson Joe.
POLE POSITION
A compact Melbourne house with a small footprint is big on efficiency and experimentation
URBAN OASIS
At an art-filled Mexico City residence, New York designer Giancarlo Valle has put his own spin on the country's traditional craft heritage
WARM FRONT
Designer Clive Lonstein elevates his carefully curated Manhattan home with rich textures and fabrics
BALCONY SCENE
A Brazilian island hotel offers a unique approach to the alfresco experience
ENSEMBLE CAST
How architect Anne Holtrop is leaving his mark on the Middle East
Survival mode
A new show looks at preparing for a post-apocalyptic landscape (and other catastrophes)
FLASK FORCE
A limited-edition perfume collaboration between two Spanish craft masters says it with flowers
BLOOM SERVICE
A flower-shaped brutalist beauty in Geneva gets a refresh
SECOND NATURE
A remodelled museum in Lisbon, by Kengo Kuma & Associates, meshes Japanese and Portuguese influences to create a space that sits in harmony with its surroundings