#021 ☼ Nostalgia Aficionado: Sean Brown
#021 ☼ Nostalgia Aficionado: Sean Brown
Nomadic DJ Set • Vintage Apple Ads • Costa Rican Paradise
ISSUE 021
Blood Orange Champagne Mule
With tasting notes of clever and tasteful homeware, a Costa Rican paradise, a trip down iPod memory lane, slow countryside life with a craft-teaching grandpa, the best websites between 1991 and 2006 and designing lamps that are off more than on.
The good life beckons once more!
CURATE WITH US
Now that January has flown by, we’re wondering…
What’s your definition of success?
Let us know in the comments 💭
Further down in this issue, discover the perfect ingredients for the best summer yet discussed last week!
Hot Hyperlinks
☼ Dive down the Web Design Museum rabbit hole of over 2,000 carefully selected websites that showcase web design trends between 1991 and 2006
☼ A softly Brutalist Airbnb villa in Costa Rica overlooking the ocean and surrounded by jungle by design studio Formafatal. Explore the property here
☼ Nomad DJs Amii and Jimmi are house-heads travelling the world. Listen to this B2B recorded in Austria with a direct view of the Lienz Dolomites alpine mountain range
☼ A brand new website for MSCHF showcasing their entire body of work in one long and enticing scroll
☼ Discover the delight that is GRANDPA Amu’s YouTube channel. An old Chinese carpenter who works by hand, he and his children want to teach you about handicrafts, delicious food and elevate your mood!
☼ Vintage commercials: The first ever iPod ad in 2001 to the iPod Shuffle ad from 2006
☼ Designer Oscar Piccolo talks about the inspiration behind his lamps that are off more than they’re on. Reacquaint yourself with the beautiful Lampada Capello which we featured in Issue 019
☼ The bear that went selfie-crazy taking over 400 photos on a Colorado wildlife camera
☼ The Light Phone is a minimalist phone designed to be used as little as possible. See: Teens don’t want smartphones anymore
☼ MAMAMA is a Parisian store with an assortment of graphic prints, books, posters and apparel
SUMMER-ENHANCING PEOPLE
Nostalgia Aficionado: Sean Brown
In Sean Brown’s own words, “Depending on the day of the week, I'm a designer, photographer, director sometimes, or fashion designer.” From afar, he is also an avid curator, researcher and cultural collector with an exceptional eye.
The Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist garnered significant online attention when he posted some samples of rugs shaped like CDs back in 2020 that came about when Brown was trying to decorate and settle in to his new apartment.
Having moved around foster homes since he was a kid, his pursuits have evolved from starting his own clothing line and working with artists like Daniel Caesar, SZA and Diddy (to name a few), to celebrating Blackness and reintroducing nostalgia to a new generation through his brand Curves: “A collection of homeware and everyday objects. In pursuit of development in personal space. To re-imagine daily habits at home.”
Highlights
Poolsuite Picks: Inflatable Ego Chair, In No Particular Order Vol.2, Bubble Hard Drive Sleeve in Mint, Spill Coasters, Cadaqués Woven Throw
How he defines the Curves brand: “To encourage people to think about the space that they occupy or where they come from, how it looks, how it affects their quality of life. A contemporary take on everyday objects. The starting point usually has cultural nuances. I’m always injecting culture into it. Black culture, Black music, Black art — always celebrating that. The other part about Curves is making design accessible to the people who need to be introduced to design.”
On his viral CD rugs: “People still care about the physical components of music. This is about celebrating and reimagining that nostalgia.”
Inside the “In No Particular Order” gallery in New York (2022), “inspired by true events” featuring photography and artifacts by Sean Brown
On why he loves print: “Starting to own media, by way of the internet, I didn’t have to go to a library and open up books anymore. But then once my brain felt like the information was too overloaded, that’s when I wanted to dial it back, start being like, remember all the magazines you used to collect? Remember all the tangible data where you could just flip through? I was a liner notes kid, you know what I mean? So I think that that’s getting lost right now, heavily. People’s reference points and their research is very shallow. I have the physical data of history to be able to go back to these magazines and be like, yo, there was a time Foxy Brown [was] in the Calvin Klein ad or Erykah Badu for Gap. I have all of it. The tangible, beyond Tumblr.”
A look inside Sean Brown’s Toronto apartment that leans heavily into an elevated Y2K aesthetic
Listen to the colour-changing playlist by Curves (best experienced on desktop) geared up for Valentine’s Day
On the inspiration behind his inflatable furniture: “Toward the end of 2021 I was browsing the marketplace and came across this inflatable sofa and ended up doing a deep dive into inflatable furniture. Quasar Khahn pioneered it in the 60s and IKEA made an attempt at bringing it back to market in the early 2000s, but people didn’t really take to it long term — the world wasn’t prepared for it. Now that younger people seem to be getting more interested and inspired by homeware and design after the pandemic, it seems like the perfect time for Curves to be able to play in that space. We came up with the concept of it being called Ego, with the inflatable component to it [being] something you inflate. “
On not deleting old work: “There’s this thing people do on Instagram—no judgement, it’s just something I've noticed, especially with artists—where they delete all their shit and then they only have 25 posts or 100 posts. I don't always want to feel like I'm someone new so I don't like who I was. I think instead of trying to hide the past or delete it, it’s better to just like let things rock. Evolution is so much iller than a full-out rebrand.”
Peruse the Curves catalogues
DO YOU WORK FOR A BIG BRAND WITH BIG MONEY? 👀
We’re delighted to announce that we’re arranging various ultra-summer soirées in NYC, LA, Austin & London this year.
Our applications for sponsors are now open. Please email soiree@poolsuite.net for more info!
COMMUNITY CURATED: PERFECT SUMMER INGREDIENTS
Last week, we asked about the ingredients for a perfect summer. Check out the comment section for lots of longing and inspiration for our favourite season. Here’s a recipe to keep it simple:
A beach, a big bottle of rosé, a bowl of cherries, driving with the top down, wind in the hair, funky beats on the radio. Salty hair, salt rimmed margaritas, late nights and palm trees.
— via Heather
Hop in the comments this week as we explore your definition of success.
SUMMER-ENHANCING HOMEWARE
EXHIBIT A: Custom Tiles by Studio GdB • EXHIBIT B: Word Table Light II • EXHIBIT C: 1950s Club Chair
JOIN US
🌴 Tune in to our ultra-summer radio, Poolsuite FM, on iPhone & web
🌴 Follow us: @Poolsuite on Instagram & Twitter, plus @PalmReport on Twitter
🌴 Discover our Hour of Summer mixtapes on SoundCloud
🌴 Say hey, or drop leisurely content you’ve discovered in the comments below!
Being able to afford not doing anything you hate to do.
There's a really great comment from Jerry Saltz in this podcast where he outlines his definition of "success" as an artist: simply having the time to actually create art.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/context-jerry-saltz-on-art-as-the-greatest-operating-system/id1616327892?i=1000596163609
I'm trying to keep this perspective in mind.