AN APPROACHABLE UPSCALE ‘COLLABORATIONs’ BETWEEN ARTISTIC DESIGN, CRAFT + PRODUCTION
May 7th NYC
Text by J. Ecochard
Images courtesy of Teroforma
A casual request on a balmy spring night- led to a friendly introduction and an interesting conversation with Hugo Eccles, the creative director of the web commerce site Teroforma-a collection of luxurious tableware.
As Eccles clued us in, the house wares line tapped inspiring brains from the arts, design, and manufacturing worlds…eventually yielding a sophisticated bunch of items to seamlessly blend into an urban lifestyle.
So being urbanites we logged on.
Our thoughts?
Refreshing-unlike the usual lock, load, point and click Internet shopping experiences we’re used to…we found ourselves, slooooowing down, using a few of our own brain cells, and enjoying the clever table-top design feature. And though, IMHO- it’s critical to physically feel the textures and heft of say a serving piece, Teroforma’s pop-up windows are stocked with loads of info on the artists… and contained such in-depth descriptions about the linen, utensils, glasses, bone china pieces (etc) that are lovingly served up…we feel the laptop’s two dimensional format actually worked.
Recently launched after years of preparation…and available exclusively online for now (hey-when’s the Pop-Up store?), Teroforma does magically fuse art with product- by sourcing over 22 artists, top notch materials, and the finest manufacturers located in such diverse far flung locales as northern China (ceramics) and Slovenia (hand-blown glass)-to conjure up everyday, dishwashable pieces.
And what sets Teroforma apart from the mass-market offerings, ie. “steps above a Crate & Barrel” and the precious fragile pieces inherited from Grannie-is the company’s sensuous appreciation of the whole soup to nuts process of creating beauty-as well as the highest regard for the quality of the end products.
BOTTOM LINE:
Posh enough to impress the in-laws-with, for example, “wineglasses for everyday use-like with a good table wine for lunch.”
Okay, Eccles is from London-but Red Bull chugging colonists will also take a moment to admire the intrinsic allure of an object thoughtfully summoned…before taking advantage of its intended, practical use.
