Making Of... Brush hour

‘La Belle et la Bête’ lounge chair, by Xavier Lust, Kent Brushes and Delhez.

- Rosa Bertoli

When we asked Xavier Lust to dream up a new take on the body brush for this year’s Wallpaper* Handmade, we expected something radical. But what the Belgian designer came back with surpassed all our expectations. Lust thought big.

‘At first I reflected on the functional, practical aspects,’ says Lust. ‘Then my train of thought released itself from these very pragmatic concepts and my hand loosened on the paper. I thought that a sculptural shape, like a rock, covered with brush hairs could be an interesting element: a mysterious object on which we can lean or sit down, and have a tactile experience.’

Brush design has changed very little in the past few thousand years. Lust’s creation took a closer look not only at aesthetics, but also at function, transforming the rather basic activity of dry body brushing into an overall physical experience in the form of an oversized, conceptual bristled daybed.