Hasta La Ideas

Reimagining personal care products in a more fluid and inclusive manner

Despite its name, LA-based Boy Smells—founded by David Kien and Matthew Herman—makes underwear and candles that aren’t intended for one gender; rather the brand is a purposeful amalgamation of masculinity and femininity and everything between. Conversation around personal care products typically being hyper-gendered led Kien and Herman to experiment within the space. They made candles in their kitchen with the mission to explore the dismissal of conventional beliefs surrounding this type of product. This fluid but all-encompassing approach is evident not just in their candle fragrances, or their underwear color palettes, but also in their language, design and packaging. We spoke with Herman about the brand’s mission, embracing our full spectrum, and scent being transportive.

Boy Smells is a brand for a post-binary world. Did the mission determine the products or the other way around?

We had a lot of conversation about a lack of products that felt fluid, but also essential in order to embody our shared passion for making living your full spectrum a daily ritual. Basically we were reimagining products to be about exploring and expressing identity, but still with traditional end usages like candles or underwear. The personal care section, in particular, is a very gendered space. Or things are relabeled as “genderless” which is a little soulless. When you see our candles wrapped in pale pink and subversively named, they bring to life our core mission: to disrupt the limited, binary-based labels in today’s personal care market to celebrate a full spectrum.

We hope to inspire people to harness power from all sides of the gender spectrum.

I would say the mission and the products are inextricably intertwined and really go hand-in-hand. For us, launching Boy Smells was an exercise in self-acceptance, an embrace of our intermingled masculinity and femininity. Men don’t own masculinity and women don’t own femininity, they are both sources of unlimited power for everyone. We hope to inspire people to harness power from all sides of the gender spectrum. Hence, we describe our products at Boy Smells HQ as “genderful” rather than “genderless.”

How do you decouple gender and scent?

Fruity, spicy, petal-y, moody and woody, Boy Smells candles are full-bodied and multi-faceted. David and I invent every scent, finding the balance between boldness and sensitivity, humor and sophistication. As opposed to decoupling gender and scent, we borrow fragrance inspiration from all sides of the spectrum, juxtaposing scents to shatter the gender binary as it’s typically perceived to develop stimulating concoctions that invite sensations, memories and new identities. For example, with Cinderose we take rose and tuberose and wrap it with smoked woods and moss, giving a full-spectrum mood.

What’s your process for developing a new fragrance? What about naming it?

We draw inspiration from our own olfactive memories and experiences, but also take into consideration the context and history those scent notes play in larger society. Our aim is to build things that have complex identities, dualities, contradiction and harmonies—much like the identities of people. We all wear a lot of hats, so it’s important the items you use on the daily reinforce your sense of self. Naming them is the most fun part. The name should evoke the feeling of the candle but we also like to have fun with the names and make them a little tongue in cheek.

You run Boy Smells with your partner David. How do you divide or share responsibilities?

David and I founded Boy Smells in our very own home back in 2016. Fortunately, our professional backgrounds are complementary and made it relatively easy to strike a balance between design versus production and logistics. Previous to Boy Smells, both David and I were in the fashion industry, I was a designer and David worked in supply chain and production. We rolled this into our responsibilities at Boy Smells. I am the scent creator, honing my design sensibilities into an olfactory palette, with the intent to bring to life scents that tell Boy Smells’ brand story. I’m extremely passionate about expressing our brand’s purpose, and translating my vision into Boy Smells’ overall aesthetics.

On the other side, David is immensely talented when it comes to operations and telling the brand story through words, namely our digital footprint, e-commerce and marketing. As a graphic design and typography aficionado, his precise lens gives Boy Smells’ branding its impact.

Which is your favorite scent? What’s David’s? If there’s such a thing as aromaology (how one’s preferences for scent determine their personality), what would your favorites say about each of you?

My personal favorite, right now, is the new Cowboy Kush. As a Texan and a lover of dualities, this scent is a push/pull of rustic and refinement. I like bold scents that play between tradition and modernity. David’s favorite is original Kush—he’s a California boy who likes easy summer and sunshine. It’s bright green and easy. I think both our personalities are reflected in this way.

As we all are spending more time at home right now have you developed any new rituals?

I have been saying this a lot recently, but I think it’s especially important to remind people during this time of isolation and staying put: don’t underestimate the power of scent to breathe new life into your space. Using scent to create different atmospheres is an easy way to transport the mind when we can’t physically travel. For instance, since my laptop is currently doubling as my yoga studio, I’ll light a calming candle like HINOKI FANTÔME for a meditative ambience. Depending on my mood, the weather, or even the time of day, I use different candles to break up the monotony of working from home and awaken my senses. I’ve found this to be an extremely helpful and easy way to keep me productive and help me from going stir crazy.

Images courtesy of Boy Smells 

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Concrete, plaster and tiled surfaces offer a neutral backdrop to the pieces on display in this pared-back rug showroom in Sydney, Australia, designed by Studio Goss.

Armadillo & Co is situated in the trendy neighbourhood of Surry Hills and is the third showroom that the Los Angeles-based luxury rug brand has opened in Australia.

As the existing spaces in Melbourne and Brisbane are trade-focused and largely visited by industry professionals, the brand’s founders wanted the new Sydney location to offer a more personal retail experience.

Studio Goss was brought on board to overhaul the interiors of the showroom building. Its previous occupants had left behind a “distracting” fit-out that featured metallic and reflective surfaces.

“When we first saw the space it was dramatic but a bit disjointed and visually messy, so our initial focus was on paring things back to bring a sense of clarity to the internal volumes,” studio founder David Goss told Dezeen.

“We were really intent on introducing some quieter surfaces to harness and better highlight this magical, ephemeral quality.”

The studio first tore away the building’s existing flooring to reveal the concrete slab underneath.

A majority of the surrounding walls have been washed in grey plaster or clad in mottled, off-white tiles – simple surfaces against which the sun can cast shadows throughout the day.

“One of the initial sources of inspiration came when we first visited the space and noticed the shadow-play and light quality that transforms the interior as the afternoon sun creates silhouettes of the street trees, projected them deep into the space,” explained Goss.

“Some of the references also included the strong architectural forms of Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh, the gently textured surfaces of Vincent Van Duysen‘s C Penthouse and the incredible balance of form in John Pawson and Claudio Silvestrin‘s Neuendorf House.”

The focal point of the space is now a dramatic hanging sculpture by local artist Lisa Cooper, which is composed of bundles of foliage and hand-spun khaki wool from one of Armadillo & Co’s collections.

As the brand’s offices are situated upstairs, the studio also decided to create a window-front communal area that could be used by both staff and customers, bringing a “sense of life” to the showroom’s ground floor.

It features a chunky stone table surrounded by black-framed stools, and an oversized paper lantern hangs overhead.

Wide panels of white oak wood have then been arranged in a grid-like fashion across the six-metre-high windows that front the showroom.

They’re intended to serve as frames where staff can create merchandise displays to be seen by passersby on the street.

Rugs are displayed across the floor, against the walls, or stacked up on low-lying timber plinths.

Towards the rear of the space there is also a sample room where customers can visualise their purchase in a smaller space that’s of more domestic proportions.

Studio Goss was established in 2014 and is based in Collingwood, an inner suburb of Melbourne.

This isn’t the first time the studio has worked with a restrained material palette. Back in 2018, it exclusively covered the walls of a clothing store in coarse concrete to emulate the materiality of brutalist architecture.

Photography is by Rory Gardiner.

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Japanese studio Nendo has designed a collection of handbags from single sheets of laser-cut leather that the buyer can assemble at home.

Created for Italian online platform Up To You Anthology, each bag in the Mai collection was designed as a single laser-cut sheet of leather, in a net-style format.

The bags are distributed to their buyers in a completely flat form. Once received, the customer can fold and assemble the bag into its three-dimensional form.

The assembly doesn’t require any tools – the bag can be assembled by simply joining a few rivets through the holes of the bag.

This straightforward design has also allowed Up To You Anthology to simplify the manufacturing process as well as minimise the inventory and shipping costs.

Due to its composition, the bag has been named after the Japanese word “ichi-mai”, which translates to “one sheet”.

The Mai bag is available in a range of different sizes and colours, including mustard yellow, dark brown, khaki and teal, achieved by dying the leather with a plant-derived tannin.

Launched in December 2019, Up To You Anthology is a startup e-commerce platform that allows visitors to design their own bag or to buy one made by various well-known designers.

“The brand is unique in that it is not limited to professional designers and is open to design proposals from anyone, and provides total support from product development to manufacturing management and online distribution,” said Nendo founder Oki Sato about the company.

This is not the first time Nendo has ventured into bag design. Previously the Japanese studio created a bag for luxury accessories brand Tod’s which is specifically suited to architects.

The bag can change shape to accommodate different sizes of drawings held inside. In its extended form, the bag can hold a full-size A3 drawing, but a more compact shape can be created using poppers at the corners to fold the bag in half.

Photography is by Akihiro Yoshida.

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Dan Crowe and Matt Willey’s relationship dates back to the early noughties, when Crowe launched literary magazine Zembla, and Willey was working at Frost Design. Zembla was particularly significant in that it marked Willey’s first entry into magazines – a world which he has been fully immersed in ever since – as well the beginning of a 15-year friendship with Crowe.

The art director and editor duo have collaborated on a number of projects since then, including the enduringly popular men’s magazine Port, but have come full circle on their latest endeavour: a literary magazine called Inque.

Officially launching in 2021, the first issue of the publication will be funded with a Kickstarter campaign (watch this space for more details), and will then be published annually over the course of the next decade.

Speaking about the inspiration for what he describes as “a ten-year art project” on the magCulture podcast, Crowe says: “[Matt and I] learned all the things we love and don’t love from Port. The things we love are design, literature, not having to rush, not having deadlines, having lunch … I love Port but there are lots of things I have to do to keep it running and pay everyone. Doing this new magazine Inque, I have no idea what it’s going to be. All I know is it’s going to be ten issues – not more, not less.”

With plans for issue one well under way, the list of confirmed contributors so far is certainly enough to whet our appetites, featuring big names from the world of cinema such as David Lynch and Samuel L. Jackson, politician David Lammy, and musicians Brian Eno and Kate Tempest, to name just a few.

Little is known yet about what we can expect from the design of Inque, save for the logo on its website which appears in one of Willey’s trademark chunky bespoke typefaces, but based on the duo’s previous collaborations readers can expect to discover more than a few surprises within its pages.

“I feel quite strongly that there’s an audience for it, and that through the work that me and Matt have done, we seem to give each other the confidence to go in certain directions,” says Crowe. “We’ve got a platform I think, it just depends on how big that platform is and how much it wants another magazine.”

Read CR’s interview with Matt Willey about his career journey so far here; inquemag.com

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