Insulation Inspiration

>> Another short trip notched up in New York meant another trip to Paintbox, not with palm trees, pineapples or other emoji-esque motifs that are so de rigueur of summer manicures.  Instead, pastel speckled foam came to mind – sometimes called compressed or recycled foam – and normally used as furniture stuffing or flooring underlay.  Its haphazard colour qualities and reconstituted material composition mean that anything from powder blue to slate grey to lemon yellow could be in the mix.

It’s the slightly wonky and awkward cousin to its more luxurious cousin marble – another texture giant that has ensconced itself across the fields of fashion, interiors and graphic design.  And slowly but surely, that speckled foam texture has seeped its way into certain collections (mostly of the graduate sort because it’s so a) a cheap material to buy and b) good for sculpting exaggerated silhouettes), into art installations and creative still life shots, and now, in a swirl of pastel orange, blue and grey, onto my nails for the next month or so.

2013 CSM MA graduate Kenji Kawusami‘s collection

Roos Gompert

University of Westminster 2014 graduate Valeska Jasso Collado 

Roksanda resort 2015

Katja Windau-Schauma

Current CSM BA student Desiree Laidler’s final school project “Comfort”

‘The Brutalist Playground’ by Assemble and artist Simon Terrill currently installed at RIBA until August 14th

Alex Mullins S/S 16 presentation from Idol Mag

Sideview of Proenza Schouler A/W 14-5 invitation

Breakdown of Proenza Schouler A/W 14-5 from The Cutting Class

A Magazine foam cover craft by Proenza Schouler

J.W. Anderson seating for A/W 14-5 womenswear show

CSM 2015 MA graduate Xinyuan Xu‘s collection

Anna Lomax set design