This is not exactly a new project. The hotel, pictured above, opened in 2016 and was the brand’s second location (their first opened in São Paulo in 2001). But I like the story and how it was executed.
Hotel Emiliano is the work of husband and wife team Gustavo Filgueiras and Andrea Colli Filgueiras. He is a hotelier. And she is a jewelry designer. Both wanted to pay homage to the glory days of Rio’s Copacabana Beach.
Designed by Arthus Casas and Chad Oppenheim – who, by the way, recently built himself a stunning home in the Bahamas – the 90-room hotel is clad in white shutters that can be used to modulate the Brazilian sun.
For a number of reasons, I am fascinated by the streetwear label, Off-White.
It is one of the hottest labels in fashion, and yet there’s a part of me that doesn’t really get it. It’s mostly bold text, usually in quotations, on various apparel items. A set of Wellington boots might be plastered with “FOR RIDING.” A winter coat might be plastered with “DOWN JACKET.” And when they collaborate with Nike, the shoes might be tagged with “AIR.” Quotations included. Is that fashion?
But then you hear Virgil Abloh – the founder of Off-White, who by the way was also trained as an architect before becoming creative director for Kanye West – talk about his brand and it starts to make more sense. The quotation marks are supposed to signal “ironic detachment and a comment on the idea of originality.” Okay, so a little more sense.
Here is an interesting article from Loose Threads that talks about the profound impact that data and fast fashion are having on apparel brands, transforming them from supply-driven businesses to demand-driven ones. It adds a bit more nuance to the trope that tech is disrupting retail simply because people are choosing to buy online.
This is not exactly a new project. The hotel, pictured above, opened in 2016 and was the brand’s second location (their first opened in São Paulo in 2001). But I like the story and how it was executed.
Hotel Emiliano is the work of husband and wife team Gustavo Filgueiras and Andrea Colli Filgueiras. He is a hotelier. And she is a jewelry designer. Both wanted to pay homage to the glory days of Rio’s Copacabana Beach.
Designed by Arthus Casas and Chad Oppenheim – who, by the way, recently built himself a stunning home in the Bahamas – the 90-room hotel is clad in white shutters that can be used to modulate the Brazilian sun.
For a number of reasons, I am fascinated by the streetwear label, Off-White.
It is one of the hottest labels in fashion, and yet there’s a part of me that doesn’t really get it. It’s mostly bold text, usually in quotations, on various apparel items. A set of Wellington boots might be plastered with “FOR RIDING.” A winter coat might be plastered with “DOWN JACKET.” And when they collaborate with Nike, the shoes might be tagged with “AIR.” Quotations included. Is that fashion?
But then you hear Virgil Abloh – the founder of Off-White, who by the way was also trained as an architect before becoming creative director for Kanye West – talk about his brand and it starts to make more sense. The quotation marks are supposed to signal “ironic detachment and a comment on the idea of originality.” Okay, so a little more sense.
Here is an interesting article from Loose Threads that talks about the profound impact that data and fast fashion are having on apparel brands, transforming them from supply-driven businesses to demand-driven ones. It adds a bit more nuance to the trope that tech is disrupting retail simply because people are choosing to buy online.
Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
. Some would consider this to be the most pivotal art piece of the 20th century. It was an off the shelf urinal that he simply signed, dated, and placed on a pedestal. Though initially rejected as art, it eventually redefined what art could be, shifting it from, “
The corollary to this was that anything could be art, even something as utilitarian as the catch basin that you pee into. And this insight is something that Abloh has used to fuel his label. But he has taken it a step further. He has leveraged the ubiquity of these everyday-items-elevated-to-art as a way to elevate his own brand. Here’s a quote by Abloh from the Guardian:
“The idea [that] an everyday object is art. Branding is generic and if I adopt the generic, then it becomes my branding, but it normally occurs in life.”
In other words, he is co-opting generic and ubiquitous items – like, for instance, the patterning on caution tape – for his Off-White designs. And if you believe that a bit of brand equity is at least partially driven by brand ubiquity, well then you might start to see the value in this approach. He is simply assigning authorship to things that are already omnipresent.
But, is that fashion? I guess that depends on whether you consider Duchamp’s Fountain to be art.
The argument, here, is about a more fundamental shift in commerce. Brands are now forced to move faster than ever before. Product lead times are dropping (see below via LT). Customer feedback loops are almost instantaneous because of social. And the result is that customers are now the driver: Figure out what people want right now and then create that supply as quickly as possible.
Fast fashion certainly isn’t a new concept, but the data, algorithms and demand planning systems are only becoming more robust. Merchandise buying – historically the work intuitionists trying to predict what customers will want seasons into the future – is now an automated process that optimizes itself following every click, abandoned shopping cart, and social media like.
On the roof is an infinity pool with a glazed side. Here is a screen grab from the hotel’s website:
And here is an aerial view of the pool taken from Dezeen:
The uniforms for the hotel were designed by Barbara Casasola and a custom jewelry collection was created by Andrea Colli.
. Some would consider this to be the most pivotal art piece of the 20th century. It was an off the shelf urinal that he simply signed, dated, and placed on a pedestal. Though initially rejected as art, it eventually redefined what art could be, shifting it from, “
The corollary to this was that anything could be art, even something as utilitarian as the catch basin that you pee into. And this insight is something that Abloh has used to fuel his label. But he has taken it a step further. He has leveraged the ubiquity of these everyday-items-elevated-to-art as a way to elevate his own brand. Here’s a quote by Abloh from the Guardian:
“The idea [that] an everyday object is art. Branding is generic and if I adopt the generic, then it becomes my branding, but it normally occurs in life.”
In other words, he is co-opting generic and ubiquitous items – like, for instance, the patterning on caution tape – for his Off-White designs. And if you believe that a bit of brand equity is at least partially driven by brand ubiquity, well then you might start to see the value in this approach. He is simply assigning authorship to things that are already omnipresent.
But, is that fashion? I guess that depends on whether you consider Duchamp’s Fountain to be art.
The argument, here, is about a more fundamental shift in commerce. Brands are now forced to move faster than ever before. Product lead times are dropping (see below via LT). Customer feedback loops are almost instantaneous because of social. And the result is that customers are now the driver: Figure out what people want right now and then create that supply as quickly as possible.
Fast fashion certainly isn’t a new concept, but the data, algorithms and demand planning systems are only becoming more robust. Merchandise buying – historically the work intuitionists trying to predict what customers will want seasons into the future – is now an automated process that optimizes itself following every click, abandoned shopping cart, and social media like.
