J Saint-Claire

When I moved to Italy a few years ago, I was constantly new & desperately in need of friends, but I couldn’t find a place to go to meet new people. School & church were my previous social safety nets, but my school only had 5 other people & my church had a median age of 74, so where do I go now? Bars might seem the next logical step, but I felt like an outsider with no way in. Thats where the idea first came to design the type of space I would want to hang out in, where the design prompted interaction, & the threshold between stranger & friend was made smaller.

The design of the space is meant to transport you, to feel a bit ethereal. A component of creating this atmosphere is to create a feeling of timelessness, that distorts the distance between the now and the not yet, where you forget about the number on your watch (if there are any). A response to the culture of immediacy, both respecting culture’s wishes & creating space in the 4th dimension worth leaving unoccupied.

I foresaw the “cowboy” trend of 2019 (Old Town Road, Post Malone & Diplo’s AMA outfits, etc.), 6 months before it began. This is my next prediction.

I see motocross becoming an inspiration, particularly in womenswear.

I see the padded jackets covered in logos and done up in bright colours, especially a combination of royal blue, lime green and white. 

I see complementary padded leather trousers and heeled motocross-esque boots. As for when, not much is happening in fashion at the moment - Covid & all that fun stuff. So I’d say 2022 - which is where I positioned all my work on this unit. 

I see masks staying around post-Covid as some (if not many) will maintain a state of heightened hygienic awareness, but some will don masks solely for the look. 

I don't see sneaker culture fading, but the bar for what makes a cool shoe will continue to rise. We’ve seen shoes with tear-away panels, 3D printed soles, stacked soles, and virtually every possible iteration of a swoosh. Designers will be forced to think more creatively, as all that is obvious, has already been done.

I began this line of inquiry by looking at increasing functionality at the expense of utility. For example a fork is useful because it has separate tines/prongs, usually 3 or 4. Increasing the number of tines to 50 makes it "more functional", however the numerous tines make it hard to eat, getting in the way of the utility. Shoes protect your feet - more shoes is hard to walk in, & so forth. The ideas grew & shifted, but it was always important to me that no matter how crazy the objects were, they were always appealing.