Hasta La Ideas

While we were all excited about the opening of the Droog retail shop in New York back in February, it appears that its creation was also marking something of a massive fallout for the famous Dutch collective. Gijs Bakker, one of the co-founders of Droog Design, has announced that this recent move into retail has driven him to resign from the organization, claiming that the group has since lost the focus he wanted it to have. A big, big change for Droog, which has been held in incredibly high regard since its founding in the early 90s. Here’s a bit of his resignation announcement from designboom, who has the full statement:

“The original ambition of Droog was to identify and showcase talented dutch, and later foreign, designers, and to stimulate discussion about the real content of the profession. Millions of Euros were invested in opening a large, expensive shop in New York — an initiative of Renny Ramakers — while the philosophy of Droog was pushed to the background. The shop in New York implies, almost inevitably, that from now on profitability will depend on the development of only large, expensive products.”

Although he finishes by saying some kind things about his time at Droog, it certainly isn’t a letter full of butterflies and roses, not in the slightest.