Famous global brands and companies may have the power to reach out to a large numbers of consumers and push their products via bold advertising campaigns. Yet times have changed and, thanks to the Internet and to the fact that more people get a chance to travel these days, many consumers are acquiring very personal and distinctive tastes. Quite a few of us love for example to learn more about the genesis of a product, which means not the mere inspiration behind it, but the actual working processes that brought a designer to come up with a unique piece. If you're among such a group of consumers, you should get to know Lines Lab.
Founded by Clara Brito and Manuel Correia da Silva in Macau, a city famous for being the first and last European colony in China, Lines Lab (some readers may remember them from previous posts here and there on this site) is indeed one of the design studios to check out in Asia.
It is actually incorrect to define Brito and da Silva as a design studio: a must see according to the New York Times, Lines Lab was recently dubbed by Monocle magazine a "creative agency" positioned on the global Lusophone Top 20 ranking.
Brito and da Silva offer indeed a wide range of services and develop audaciously creative projects revolving around urban architecture (da Silva designed telephone booths and outdoor benches), design and fashion.
Among their latest products there are the MIRamics ceramic lamps inspired by the Chinese plastic red lamps in traditional markets in Macau and Hong Kong; Sombra, a Tyvek umbrella characterised by lace-like laser cut details inspired by old shop gates in Macau and designed for sunny days, and the "Super Heavy Light" collection of silk scarves with ethereal digitally printed concrete graphics developed from Lines Lab's experiments with urban furniture.
Yet Brito and da Silva aren't stopping to developing their own products: their final hope is to see one day a flourishing group of small to medium sized brands thriving on the Asian market. To this aim they recently launched the MunHub, a platform dedicated to innovative brands and companies.
Promoting exchanges among the creative minds while encouraging the multi-disciplinary interaction between different brands and their consumers, Lines Lab may be heading a clever and quiet revolution that - based on a unique mix of fashion, architecture, design, art and communication - may soon spread from Asia to the rest of the world.
What's the MunHub platform about?
Manuel Correia da Silva: In the last 5 years our brand built a lot of experience in Asia and we felt that it was the right time to come up with an innovative initiative - a programme of commercial activities for other brands. We built a business format - the MunHub - that selects and promotes creative design and luxury product brands that want to start on the Asian market. As a brand we know how hard it is when you're starting out and in this way we can offer people the chance to share a network and have access to events. Since we originally come from Portugal and are based in Macau we have been looking at brands from Portuguese speaking countries, but this is not a must and we are open to others as well, while we are mainly focusing on cities like Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore and Beijing because of our connections there.
Can you tell us more about the Design Market @ PMQ (old Policeman's Married Quarters) in Hong Kong?
Manuel Correia da Silva: We first took part in this event in August and we will be going again in October and November. The Design Market @ PMQ is actually the first kind of event where Lines Lab is not being presented on its own, but in conjunction with further brands from the MunHub platform. For a medium or small sized company to establish itself in Asia is very hard because you find yourself in a huge market and these sort of events allow people to get to know the brands from this side of the world and the brands in return get to know their consumers.
Do you feel that consumers are getting more interested in smaller brands?
Manuel Correia da Silva: Consumers are probably feeling a bit bored with the big fashion brands because globalisation has made them all look the same, so everywhere they go they find the same shops and the same products. This is where emerging brands end up carving their own niche and their own spaces, receiving the attention of consumers especially in the cities. But you must make sure you have quality and you offer consumers something innovative and different. Quite often consumers want to know the story behind a product or want to discover the processes you have been using to make them. They want to engage with the designers and hear how things are built for example. At times this happens for environmental issues; at others because they are genuinely interested in seeing what's behind a particular object.
Can you take us behind the creation of Lines Lab's "Super Heavy Light" collection of silk scarves?
Manuel Correia da Silva: The idea for this digitally printed scarves came from a working process behind another product. I also design street furniture and, while I'm not into the design of buildings, I do like working with ideas for the pavements and the streets. Throughout the years I've been designing benches and equipment for public spaces, mainly in partnership with a few architects. In some cases I worked with concrete and, quite often, when you deal with different materials from the ones you usually employ for fashion objects and accessories, you start wondering how to apply such a material to another object or product. Just before we came up with the scarves we had developed a line of bags in Tyvek, a cool material that we used for our Sombra umbrella as well. The two things suddenly came together when we started playing with Tyvek: we filled one of our Tyvek bags with concrete and let it dry for some time there. As the material dried the bags turned into sculpture-like formations and we realised you could still see the imprint the Tyvek had left on the concrete, as the fabric had become a sort of mould. Then the material started to crack and suddenly we had elements that belonged to a piece of fabric, such as a stitch, with more architectural elements like a crack. In a nutshell, the two materials had started living together and we were so enthralled by the surfaces, colours and details that we took pictures of the macro-details. We wondered what we could do with the pictures and, since we had worked our way from Tyvek to concrete, so from a soft to a hard material, we decided to work the other way round and go back to the fabric, applying the digital prints on silk. That's how the scarves were born.
How do you feel about being acknowledged by important publications such as Monocle?
Manuel Correia da Silva: The Monocle article was sort of a surprise as we were not expecting it, but it was really nice as for some media it is difficult to understand what we do or what we are. Macau is a very small town and there are a lot of people who don't know that they still speak Portuguese here. It was therefore nice to see that they had done an in-depth research and that they took us in consideration, dubbing us "a creative agency". We actually never thought about ourselves in that way, but maybe that's what we are!
Are you planning to take part in any events in Europe?
Manuel Correia da Silva: We're currently busy with the MunHub platform and for the time being we want to focus on our exposure on the Asian market. We are thinking of going to Hong Kong Fashion Week as well and, in October, we will be taking part in Asia's only boutique designer sleepover - In Bed With Designers - in Taipei City. A number of hotel rooms will be transformed into display spaces for innovative products and creations. But at the moment we don't have any specific events outside Asia in our plans. We feel we still need to do a lot of backstage research and must keep ourselves focused on our Asian appointments if we genuinely want to make a difference in future.
Lines Lab will be at the Design Market @ PMQ, Hong Kong, on 5th and 12th October and on 2nd and 9th November 2014, and at In Bed With Designers in Taipei, from 8th to 12th October 2014. To keep up to date with the brand’s products and with Lines Lab, you can check out the creative agency's site.
Image credits for this post
All images Copyright © 2014 LINES LAB, All rights reserved
1. Clara Brito and Manuel Correia da Silva;
2. MIRamics lamps;
3. Sombra Sunbrella;
4. Super Heavy Light scarf;
5 - 6. Showcase at the Design Market @ PMQ in Hong Kong, August 2014;
7. Sombra Sunbrella detail;
8. Super Heavy Light scarf and inspiration - "The dream of concrete is to reach the sky";
9. Super Heavy light scarf - inspiration - "Innovation is about creating something concrete";
10. Sombra Sunbrella.
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