In a Victorian townhouse in East London, the designer Faye Toogood has built a work space that honours both her distinct eye and the certainty of impermanence.
UNCOMPLICATED BEAUTY HAS never interested the designer Faye Toogood. She doesn’t care about what’s in fashion; in fact, she would prefer her work make you uneasy, suddenly unsure of what year it is, even what century. Such disorientation is embedded, like an alien fossil, in the oeuvre of the polymathic Toogood, 42, who has for the last decade created objects, furniture, clothing and residential interiors that seem simultaneously futuristic and prehistoric: chairs with backs like the handle of a garden spade; sparsely furnished Georgian homes with murky gray walls and metal cage bookshelves; oversize, genderless garments of boiled wool and ivory canvas. She is widely considered to be the most poetic of contemporary design’s minimalists.
Further proof: the London building where she and her staff of 15 have worked since 2016, in the formerly bohemian Shoreditch neighborhood. The vertiginously thin, four-story, 1,800-square-foot Victorian townhouse had been a downtrodden squat; the landlord offered a reduced rent with a four-year lease. Many creative entrepreneurs long for a relatively permanent home to laboriously — and expensively — sculpt into a showroom, but Toogood, who spent nearly a decade as a stylist and editor at The World of Interiors magazine in the 2000s, is untroubled by potential displacement:
Denne historien er fra March 2019-utgaven av T Singapore: The New York Times Style Magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra March 2019-utgaven av T Singapore: The New York Times Style Magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Look At Us
As public memorials face a public reckoning, there’s still too little thought paid to how women are represented — as bodies and as selves.
Two New Jewellery Collections Find Their Inspiration In The Human Anatomy
Two new jewellery collections find their inspiration in the human anatomy.
She For She
We speak to three women in Singapore who are trying to improve the lives of women — and all other gender identities — through their work.
Over The Rainbow
How the bright colours and lively prints created by illustrator Donald Robertson brought the latest Weekend Max Mara Flutterflies capsule collection to life.
What Is Love?
The artist Hank Willis Thomas discusses his partnership with the Japanese fashion label Sacai and the idea of fashion in the context of the art world.
The Luxury Hotel For New Mums
Singapore’s first luxury confinement facility, Kai Suites, aims to provide much more than plush beds and 24-hour infant care: It wants to help mothers with their mental and emotional wellbeing as well.
Who Gets To Eat?
As recent food movements have focused on buying local or organic, a deeper and different conversation is happening among America’s food activists: one that demands not just better meals for everyone but a dismantling of the structures that have failed to nourish us all along.
Reimagining The Future Of Fashion
What do women want from their clothes and accessories, and does luxury still have a place in this post-pandemic era? The iconic designer Alber Elbaz thinks he has the answers with his new label, AZ Factory.
A Holiday At Home
Once seen as the less exciting alternative to an exotic destination holiday, the staycation takes on new importance.
All Dressed Up, Nowhere To Go
Chinese supermodel He Sui talks about the unseen pressures of being an international star, being a trailblazer for East Asian models in the fashion world, and why, at the end of the day, she is content with being known as just a regular girl from Wenzhou.
