Taste Makers Dion Lee Takes on the World, Giorgio Armani Prive, Fred’S, the Lansdowne, Rag & Bone, Coach Tasmania: Walking, Wine and the Dark Arts
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WISH TASTE MAKERS DION LEE TAKES ON THE WORLD, GIORGIO ARMANI PRIVE, fred’s, THE LANSDOWNE, RAG & BONE, COACH TASMANIA: WALKING, WINE AND THE DARK ARTS JUNE 2017 W l PROFILE ivind Slaatto had nothing to lose the asked me to submit a proposal for what day he boarded a train to Struer, a “The conventional ended up being the Beoplay A9,” Slaatto Øsmall town three hours northwest recalls. The Beoplay A9 is a wireless of Copenhagen. The industrial designer way up to my dreams speaker system that looks like a piece of had hit rock bottom. He had no money, seemed far too long furniture or even art. It was launched in no customers, no products on the market. and hazardous, so 2012. “The days of wanting to hide your He wore a shirt he had just bought and bulky black stereo are over,” was the dragged his mate Dominic Balmforth along I decided to aim marketing tag of the product. for the ride. It turned out to be the best directly for the best.” Slaatto says he enjoyed every aspect of decision he ever made. For that small town the design process of working with Bang & is not your average small town in Denmark, Olufsen. The only issue was that Slaatto had but the home of Bang & Olufsen. told them he had a studio with a team. He “Starting as an independent designer didn’t. He had a studio but it contained only isn’t as fancy as some might think,” he him. “I got help from family and friends tells WISH. “The conventional way up to when creating the full size mock-ups of the my dreams seemed far too long and products,” he says. “My girlfriend made the hazardous, so I decided to aim directly for fabric and my mother even helped cook for the best and the best I could imagine at my rather unusual studio team. It was my that time was Bang & Olufsen.” Slaatto very first design to come into production, and Balmforth convinced those at the top and it was a significant success.” MR SPEAKER of the iconic Danish electronics brand to Slaatto embarked on designing a meet with them, and pitched their ideas number of other products for different A YOUNG DANISH DESIGNER for sound products. Balmforth did the companies after the Beoplay A9 launch, business modelling and Slaatto did the from light shades for Louis Poulsen WENT FROM DOWN AND OUT designs. After the pitch, the pair didn’t Lighting to wooden stools in collaboration STRAIGHT TO THE TOP. think they had made much of an with fellow Danish designer Signe Hytte. impression, but they were wrong. During that period, he noticed how bad the WORDS MILANDA ROUT “Fourteen days later they called and acoustics were in his studio (which by Industrial designer Øivind Slaatto EITORP L LEMMING F WISH . JUN/2017 . 25 W l PROFILE then was populated by a few more experience”, according to Bang & people). The location and light were Olufsen vice president of brand, design fabulous but the sound was horrible. and marketing, Marie Kristine “It was clear that we needed to Schmidt. She recommends that those cover the hard walls with some kind of seeking such “immersive high-end sound-absorbing material and a sound” seek out other products from geometry that reflects the sound in a their range. “This is really a product for way which helps to improve the people who want music in the acoustics,” Slaatto says. “Since I had background, who want music as a been working with Bang and Olufsen, I mood-setter,” she told Wired in Milan. suggested they should offer an ‘auditory “This is far more concerned with indoor climate’ rather than ‘just’ lifestyle and interiors than [anything] speakers, which they are really good at you have ever seen from Bang & already. I wanted to not only improve Olufsen before.” the sound but also the silence.” It is the perfect intersection of form At the same time that he was and function for Slaatto, and that is pitching his idea, Slaatto was skiing in something he strives to achieve in all the Norwegian mountains and became his design work. “I never think about fascinated with the way the light whether what I do is art or not,” he reflected in the snow and how gentle says. “My focus is just to do my best, no the sound was in this environment. matter what I do, searching for obvious This was the starting point for the and honest design solutions.” design of what would become the Two arrays of Bang & Olufsen’s BeoSound Shapes – a wireless system of speakers, Slaatto has come a long way since BeoSound Shape. Unlike anything else amplifier, acoustic dampers and smart hub – designed by Slaatto he took that train to Struer. But offered by Bang & Olufsen, it is a series perhaps he should have had more of hexagon-shaped fabric-covered tiles confidence on that particular day, that are wall-mounted and create a given his background. After all, Slaatto wireless speaker system. Each played the tuba and studied music BeoSound Shape includes tiles that are before going to design school, and who speakers, an amplifier, sound-absorbing better than a musician to dream up acoustic dampers and a smart hub products for one of the most famous (where all the music gets transmitted). audio companies in the world? You can have as many of the tiles as “I was raised in a family of you want, starting from as few as six, musicians where there were no screens and they come in a variety of colours to – not even a television. When we were suit different environments (from bored my siblings and I would play lounge rooms to hotel lobbies). football, play our instruments, draw or “It can be custom-designed and invent stuff,” he says. “My older turn high-quality music into an interior brother played cello, my younger art form,” says Slaatto of his product. brother was drumming or digging a The BeoSound Shape was launched at tunnel in the garden to China (he the design mecca that is the Milan didn’t finish it). I focused on playing Salone del Mobile in April this year my tuba, inventing airplanes, rubber and has been lauded as a marked guns and an eternity machine (I departure from the “audiophile looking haven’t finished it either) ... today I for a one-chair, no-friends listening only play design.” W TOUCH OF THE RITZ Melbourne is a long way from Paris but for a few weeks this month it won’t seem as far. French fashion house Chanel is bringing its ready-to-wear collection from its recent Metiers d’Art show – inspired by the Paris Ritz – to the Marais boutique in Melbourne for a pop-up installation. It is the first time a collection will be shown outside the luxury brand’s stores in Australia and it will run from June 15 to July 9 at Marais on Bourke Street – complete with an opening night party. The 2016-17 Metiers d’Art show, Paris Cosmopolite, OUT drew on links between the iconic hotel and R Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel. The designer lived there from the 1920s until her death ILANDA M in 1971. There is now a dedicated Chanel suite in the Ritz, which reopened last year WORDS: after four years of renovation. 26 . JUN/2017 . WISH W l TRAVEL l Penny Durham LUXURY ON THE LINKS scotland’s grandest hotel and sporTING ESTATE CONTINUES ITS TRADITION OF ELEGANT LEISURE. HARBOURSIDE RESORT Open barely a month, the Kerry Hotel Hong Kong is the city’s first “urban resort” and its fourth property by the Shangri-La group. Designed by Andre Fu (the Upper House) the property sits on the Kowloon waterfront in Hung Hom Bay, moments from Tsim Sha Tsui and an easy ferry, metro or limo ride to the rest of Hong Kong’s attractions. The resort has 546 rooms and suites including a 294sqm Presidential Suite. More than half the rooms have views of Victoria Harbour and the futuristic island skyline, seen through floor-to- ceiling windows, with décor in warm, neutral shades and the signature Kerry blue and grey. Under executive chef Matthew Bennink, four restaurants and a terrace bar offer a range of cuisines and styles – including “interactive cooking stations” at Big Bay Café and contemporary Chinese at Hung Tong. leneagles has been Scotland’s guestrooms and suites, including the playground of luxury and outdoor opulent 170sqm Royal Lochnagar Suite Gleisure for almost 100 years. The and the two-storey Blue Tower Suite. grand Perthshire retreat was conceived The country-house décor has been by Donald Matheson, general manager chosen for comfort, warmth and of the Caledonian Railway Company, elegance without formality. in 1910. World War I intervened and Numerous places to eat and drink the hotel did not open until 1924, but include the two-Michelin-starred Gleneagles’ golfing reputation was Andrew Fairlie restaurant; fine dining at already building: Matheson had Strathearn; the scarlet-themed Century employed champion golfer James Braid Bar, with its collection of old and rare NEW ENGLAND GRANDEUR to design two courses, the King’s and whiskies; and the Dormy Clubhouse for Three refurbished historic properties on Rhode Island in the heart of New Queen’s, which opened in 1919. post-round drinks. England comprise the Ocean House Collection. Ocean House on the Now owned by Sharan Pasricha’s And to the main event: the property bluffs of Watch Hill, built in 1869, looks out over a private beach to the Ennismore, the property has undergone now has three championship golf Atlantic.