We had great fun at Paris Fashion Week showing Sphere One's SS19 collection when we took over a beautiful little ground floor retail space on Rue du Pont aux Choux close to the Merci store in Le Marais. As the collection took inspiration from places of significance to designer and founder Lucy Downes in Co. Wicklow, where Sphere One was founded, we went to Ordnance Survey Ireland, who dug out…
Read MoreThoughts on origins ... "From the ombréd amber of the little river Liffey, to the textures of the local granite, sometimes a granular golden sand, sometimes a generous hefty blob of bluish grey sculpted by the tumbles of the river, sometimes an enormous thunder coloured slab, used for a window lintel or chiselled into a saddle stone traditionally used to save crops from damp and rodents, …
Read MoreWe enjoyed playing games with De Paor architects to create the Brandub playing surface, the surface of which is a circle. This reinforces the island nature of the game (versus the linear-army nature of chess). This circle of felt is hand made in Dublin from pure, un-dyed wool. The puncture marks reference the 10th century Brandub board, found in 1932 during the excavation of a 'crannog', or…
Read MoreCollaboration really works well when the two parties, in trying to resolve their own element of the project, influence the other to improve the overall design. In the case of Brandub, architect Tom dePaor had come up with a wonderful version of the ancient game, carving the pieces from extruded peat, a material of which he is fond. Although the ancient found specimen was square Tom had in mind…
Read More