Slow and Steady Wins the Race Paris Pop-Up Shop
by Zeva Bellel
Photos by Fabrice Fortin
The art-meets-fashion concept brand, Slow and Steady Wins the Race made "Presents," a series of limited-edition nesting boxes for their holiday pop-up shop in Paris. Inhabiting the Brachfeld gallery for the month of the December, the event marks the first time the NYC brand has brought its deconstructionist design ethos overseas.
Rolling art and anticipation into one, the collection comprises an ephemeral range of eight artist-designed box sets that celebrate the experience and excitement of giving and receiving. What lies inside the boxes is an afterthought—the presentation is the present itself.
In keeping with the brand's measured and meticulous maturation process, the idea for "Presents" has been brewing in the pot for a while, inspired originally by founder Mary Ping's Vassar sculpture professor Harry Roseman who created a gift experience involving dollar store trinkets wrapped in boxes within boxes for his wife. Seizing on the idea of offering what Ping describes as a "lasting memory as a gift,†she paired off her creative buddies tasking them with coming up with a present-less present.
Tauba Auerbach and Hannes Hetta created a three-piece set of mirrored boxes with patterned bases, turning the tiny spaces into kaleidoscopic infinity rooms (€3,333).
Terence Koh and Garrick Gott (tongues firmly in cheeks) created a set of six white paper nesting boxes that spell x-a-n-a-x in hand cut paper letters, with a final pill in the end (€1,088).
Continue reading and see more images after the jump.
Matt Wolf and Carl Williamson’s Jewish Kind of Christmas set offers a smorgasbord of quirky delights, including a special mixed tape, a piece of fool’s gold and a glass sun catcher (€188).
Chris Caccamise and Christina Moon’s festive set contains handmade paper pins with car paint varnish to decorate the hero or heroine in your life (€288).
Dorothée Perret created a French family time capsule in concrete, with each person in the house adding a personal trinket to the mix. Her artist husband Oscar Tuazon brought the wine (€4,000).
In addition to the artist sets, Slow and Steady Wins the Race brought some of its pieces out of their archive for the occasion, such as a festive jumbo pearl necklace, a green velvet evening bag, a Birken-esque leather bag and a fox stole in cream-colored cotton—the perfect avant-garde accessory to ring in the New Year.
Slow and Steady Wins the Race
Through 24 December 2009
Brachfeld Gallery
78 rue des Archives
Paris 75003
tel. +33 1 46 36 15 00
