Design Makes Us Human: Highlights from BKLYN Designs

Fairs revolving around the world of design are becoming more interesting than events exclusively focused on fashion as the former manage to include exciting projects and presentations by a wide range of creative minds, quite often collaborating together across disciplines.

Founded in 2003 by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, BKLYN Designs is one of those fairs that has gone from strength to strength, shining a spotlight on the creative economy in Brooklyn, and helping putting the local makers on the design map.

Open to designers, architects, builders, developers, store buyers, industry influencers, educators, urban planners and design-savvy consumers, the event is indeed considered as an introduction to the borough's rich design heritage, offering visitors the chance to see (and buy) both hi-tech and handcrafted pieces.

Posters with slogans such as "Design Makes Us Human" and "Design Knows No Borders" accompanied this year's edtion. This long weekend that closes today at the Brooklyn Expo Center in Greenpoint featured a lot of emerging brands and established design veterans as well.

Among the latter there was also Mark Jupiter, a fourth generation award winning NYC furniture designer and builder that introduced to the BKLYN Designs visitors the Tower Coffee Table, incorporating 1,000-year-old redwood salvaged from a 50-year-old Brooklyn Water Tower.

Products went from ceramic pieces to solid wood furniture inspired by the Japanese aesthetics, jewelery, small accessories and interior design pieces.

Highlights have included ethically sourced home accessories from Bolé Road Textiles, handwoven in Ethiopia and sewn into pillows, napkins and table runners locally in Brooklyn; artistic fabrics characterised by brightly coloured prints of animals for the home and wardrobe by De Islas; Legion Lighting's subway car lighting fixtures customized by Brooklyn artists; colorful Memphis-inspired furniture and accessories from Pezzi, and an exhibit of a modular, post-disaster housing prototype designed by Garrison Architects.

This firm designs buildings through a process of extensive research that responds to the current economic, cultural, technical and environmental challenges. Collaborating with an extensive group of designers, engineers, and manufacturers, Garrison Architects creates innovative work in industrialised building process and sustainable design.

Fabrics assumed a central role at this year's DKLYN Designs, thanks to a pop-up textile studio where Textile Arts Center hosted live demos and workshops led by their Artists in Residence and ranging from screen printing to weaving, and to the sustainable fashion, accessories and home goods from the Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator (BF+DA).

The latter is a hub for ethical fashion and design that provides designers with the resources they need to transform their ideas into successful businesses. The hub also offers to NYC designers and brands production services including 3D printing and laser cutting along with a sample development studio and small-run apparel manufacturing facility.

The event has also been accompanied by BKLYN Buys, a marketplace where attendees were introduced to and shopped for crafted accessories and design objects made or designed in Brooklyn.

Products on offer included handcrafted jewellery made of nylon mesh by Michal Lando, a New York based artist with roots in Israel and Europe and Lucia Pearl Jewelry's latest project "Maalem + Maalema" (Arabic for "master + master"), a collaboration with Moroccan master engraver, Mohammed Benjebara.

It is interesting to note that quite a few brands showcasing in the market section of the design event, are focused on investing in sustainability and engaging with communities: Lesh's handwoven jewellery by fiber-artist Summer Moore is inspired by the weaving traditions of Peru and made from cotton fibers, recycled thread, and hand-dyed cordage;non-profit organisation CaribBEING manufactures instead Caribbean-inspired, Brooklyn-made totes, tea towels, textiles, pouches, and stationery, aiming at building community through the lens of the Caribbean cinema, culture, and art.

Maybe it's about time that, rather than talking about profit, shares, sales, calendar changes and other other assorted shenanigans, the fashion industry shifted the attention on real human needs and started taking example from the mood, products and ideas offered by such design events and fairs.