Lampoon Magazine International issue 21

It could be chronicle or literature – prototype stands for positive, resilient, operative people – as we are. Prototype is about challenging ourselves with experimental assets, it’s about turning the other cheek – we have cried enough – and face a brave new world. Prototype – any item being researched for the launch of new production. A prototype is where creative ideas meet — or clash — with industrial feasibility. The item must lead to replicable solutions. A prototype can (or must) adapt the creative idea to ensure that its reproducibility meets a factory’s cost restrictions. The references here are those of design, manufacturing, and textile. A prototype might be feasible but only for limited, numbered editions and not for large-scale productions. That is the case with high fashion. A…

If the Roman house now thrives on fashion, leather goods including its best-seller Baguette bag, accessories, and perfumes, it is first and foremost a world-class furrier. LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton’s third most lucrative brand (following its acquisition in 2001). Serge Brunschwig inherited the executive direction from Pietro Beccari back in 2018. He was tasked with guiding the billion-euro company forward. Brunschwig is a key figure of LVMH, having joined the group in 1995 and lead Hedi Slimane’s Dior Homme in the noughties. The house has solidified its relationship with the art world by collaborating with artists in the past decades. Joshua Vides, the Southern Californian graphic designer and visual artist rejuvenated the house’s Peekaboo bag. The house conquered Art Basel Miami Beach with Dutch designer Sabine Marcelis. Rimowa’s iconic…

Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi make up the Italian design duo Studio Formafantasma and are based in Amsterdam. They attended the IM Master program at Design Academy Eindhoven, where they graduated in July 2009. Characterised by experimental material investigations, their work explores the relationship between tradition and local culture, critical approaches to sustainability and the significance of objects as cultural conduits. Cambio — the recent exhibition of design duo Formafantasma at London’s Serpentine Sackler Gallery — does not exhibit any design object in the accepted sense; it does not showcase products but a way of thinking. «Cambio looks through the relationship between humankind and its ecosystem. The process of growth, trade, production, utilization and even disposal of wood, which is the only construction material which humankind doesn’t extract but grows».…

British designer Tom Dixon declares himself self-taught. In 1985, he was among the founders of the group Creative Salvage together with Mark Brazier-Jones and Nick Jones, who played in his band. In the Nineties, Dixon designed for Cappellini. In 1998, he became responsible for design and later Creative Director for Habitat. In 2002, he founded a company that bears his name, specializing in the lighting sector. Dixon received the Order of the British Empire in 2001, and was awarded as Designer of the Year at Maison & Objet in 2014. Built in 1851 on the King’s Cross section of the Regent’s Canal, Eastern Coal Drops were imagined as an administrative and storage facility for the incoming of coal and fish supplies into London. In the 160 years since, the use…

Jermaine Gallacher, design dealer. His showroom on Lant Street, Southwark, houses a curation of furniture, lighting, home accessories and objets d’art. In this space, he has staged shows featuring commissioned work by artists and designers, as well as items of his own creation, such as the Wavy Rug, handwoven in Morocco. Gallacher has curated a space at National Trust property Rainham Hall and contributed to men’s fashion and culture magazine Another Man. Off the path of the Borough area, London, you’ll find Lant Street, a dead-end road. From a distance, the first thing you’ll see is the branded brick façade of the Gladstone Arms — a pub that dates back to the 1920s. On your right is 59-61 Lant Street, a war-era industrial building whose ground floor is painted white, and…

Mera and Don Rubell: husband and wife, collectors. Over the years, the couple successfully invested in artists before they became well-known. Cindy Sherman in 1978, Jeff Koons one year later, then Keith Haring and Richard Price in 1981. If they believed in the continuity of a new artist, the Rubells would purchase almost the entire body of their work. When the prices of these pieces went up, they would sell several of them for the budget to proceed with the next, and so on and so forth, thus generating exponential economic value. They made each decision without the support of an advisor or anyone from the industry. A simple middle class couple, Don a gynecologist, Mera a teacher. In 1999, the Rubells purchased the entire body of work, nearly 3,000…