We were really excited to see our latest projects on board the luxury cruise ship Silver Dawn. A big thank you to everyone at Silversea and the incredible supportive team at ICART Miami
Kaiseki restaurant interior onboard SS Silver Dawn launched April 2022
Ferrous Dawn 2021 triptych mixed media on canvas.
CSIE is the premiere European trade fair dedicated exclusively to the marine interiors community. The show has been curated for those working within the cruise ship interiors industry, interior designers, architects, outfitters and shipyards. Several of the artworks exhibited are available. Please contact the studio for further information.
Ferrous 2021, O’Hare & D’Jafer. Mixed media on canvas 1200 mm
Luxury sailing sailing ship SS Moon the latest ocean liner for the silverseas group small luxury ocean liners.
The studio at O’Hare & D’Jafer created a triptych artwork for the walls of Kaiseki, a Japanese restaurant.
Drawing our inspiration from historic objects, capturing an essence of time in materials, colour change and surface texture. The story of a group of objects passage through time marked by the elements. Using gold leaf, gesso upon the surface of canvas, an impasto underpainting of foliage is marked, changed through chemical reactions. Controlling the application of fluids, accepting the randomness of the patina created.
Obscura Storm Triptych. O’Hare-D’Jafer 2020.
Obscura Strom Triptych. O’Hare-D’Jafer 2020
Obscura Storm Triptych. O’Hare-D’Jafer 2020
Premier Vision Paris held twice a year contains so many marvellous materials, leather and accessories as well as spaces of pure imagination and inspiration. It was in the leather pavilion that we came across these amazingly textured fish skins, a bovine leather alternative from the Amazon basin.
Premier Vision Paris Feb 2020 leather pavilion.
The Pirarucu fish is found in the lakes and rivers of the Amazon Basin and has been a staple food in the diet of the peoples of north Brazil for centuries, the skin was usually discarded.
Brazilian artist and designer Oscar Metsavaht created a project with UNESCO in Brazil to create a guiding philosophy called ASAP (As Sustainable As Possible). Putting the discarded skins to good use has resulted in an extra ordinary fish skin than has been tanned to create a textural alternative material.
Pirarucu fish skin accessory
Stephen checking out the Pirarucu skin Paris feb 2020
The managed fisheries ensure set quotas of fish can only be caught once they have reached a size of 150 cm in length the total catch never to be more than 20% of stock.
The skins are sold by local fishing communities to the tannery, they are finished in to the Pirarucu skin leather alternative. This circular economy is having very positive effects within the local economy, both social and environmental.
Stamp from 1954 British Guiana Arapaima gigas.
Premier Vision Paris in February 2020 was the place to see the most inspiring fabrics and materials that will become the must have items for summer 21 here are a selection from the original colour palettes from the Premiere vision.
There is an appetite for more sustainable and environmentally material development with designers and consumers. Eco products now vaunt a new chic, going beyond recycled materials and organic production. We will look at some of these developments new and exciting in our next post.
Leading the way are surfaces enlivened with subtle irregularities and shivering raised effects. Fabrics featuring plant fibers give life to maximally refined blends including hemp and linen, discreetly authentic. Shantung, fine silky slubs with the naturalness of linen for relaxed surface effects.
Traceability is now a critical factor in the selection of materials combined with a call for less polluting manufacture, with a focus on quality and innovation .
Clean, full bright colour scheme,s play with faux white.
Restrained shades perfect for casual wear.
A balance dynamic between restrained tones and luminous energetic hues.
February 11 th 2020 we were lucky enough to be invited to a private view of the shoe exhibition within the Musee Des Arts Decoratifs Loure Paris. This unique, prestigious space, dominated by its 18 meter high vault is the museums central emblematic space. the galleries on either side of the nave look out onto the Rue de Rivoli and the Carrousel gardens. The three floors of the gallery rising majestically on either side house the Musee des arts decorations permanent collection. When we entered the museum on that frosty February evening, the world had no idea of the curtailment to personal and artistic movement that was about about to descend.
Throughout history the shoe has existed in a dizzying diversity of shapes materials and sizes. In western society and elsewhere around the world, from the middle ages up until present day, men’s, women’s and children’s shoes all share one primary purpose, to protect the foot from the ground and weather.
Christian Louboutin, En Pointe Pumps 2007 Met Museum NY
This piece of clothing, intrinsic to a persons ease of mobility over terrain, is not always created with the intention of walking. Many shoes are too delicate, too small, too fragile or just too uncomfortable. Shoes can reveal the wearers mood, through the choice of a certain colour or shape, but more often than not they are a mark of social class, wealth and position.
Marie Antoinette 1792 silk, leather and wood shoe.
The Paris exhibition came about after the study of one small shoe in the museums own collection, dating from 1792, measuring just 21 centimetres long and 5 centimetres in width and belonging to Marie Antoinette. The research revealed that the aristocratic women of the “Haute bourgeoisie’ during the 18th and 19th century walked very little, their restricted mobility was such that their shoes were not really meant for walking very far if at all.
Chopines Venice Italy 1600’s V&A collection London
Fantastic footwear is often shaped by social convention, and the Chopine is no exception. Almost 500 years ago, these platform shoes, some shapes like contemporary skyscrapers were designed to display familial wealth. These Chopines had developed from ancient platform styles, worn from the 6th century BCE. Platforms have had a very long tradition in European fashion right through to the 17th century. Then they faded from fashion and it wasn’t until the 20th century when Salvatore Ferragamo amongst others reintroduced them in his shoe collections during the 1930s that the platform shoe came back into fashion.
Chopines Venice 1600’s, white calf leather and wood.
The daughters and wives of Venetian nobility were put out like gilded parade floats, mounted upon very high Chopines, dressed in sumptuous silks and furs, their job was to convey the wealth of their families as well was the larger affluence of Venice. They could only to walk very slowly and would require the aid of two servants to navigate whatever space they were moving though.
Sometimes hoes can turn out to be a fatal scourge, they are that knife edge walk between pleasure and pain, fetishists and makers, They are the place where our bodies connect to the earth. In the award winning 1948 British film ‘The Red Shoes” staring Moira Lister by Powell and Pressburger, the central character Victoria Page wears crimson red ballet slippers which at first bring her fulfilment, but which later turn out to be a fatal scourge, dying for her art.
Red Ballet shoes 1948 by Freed London, courtesy Northampton Museum UK
Original flyer for the 1948 film
Some shoes become iconic, associated with journeys, expeditions, exploration, famous people and personalities. They become obsessions for some, Imelda Marcos amassed a collection of over 3000 pairs of size 8.5 shoes, most with a very sensible low heel, it earned her the sobriquet “Marie Antoinette with shoes”.
The Carrie Bradshaw character in the New York based tv show “Sex In The City’ was mugged for her coveted Manolo Blahniks, her characters passion for shoes was such that she could only afford to purchase her apartment after selling her 100 pairs collection of shoes for a $40,000 deposit.
Apollo II Moon walk boot NASA ILC industries Delaware USA
The Tramp, Charlie Chaplin Boot 1915
Shoe Lasts, Ferragamo Italy
Horse Shoe’s, Berlin 2006 Iris Schieferstein
October 2019 we will be returning to Decorex International with a new presentation of art decorative pieces from our latest collection. Using the finest hides, combined with metal veneers, surface sculpting and patination. You can find us in booth G164 in the main hall, look forward to seeing .
Tessellation
Read MoreGlacial ice placed on top of washes of coloured pigments.
Read MoreHRH Princess Margaret 21st Birthday Gown
Read MoreMonumental metallise soft furnishings.
Read MoreAncona in January is bright and crisp, perfect winter weather in the Marche region of Italy. We are here to install a hand woven leather tapestry upon the main dining room walls of the liner.
Jupiter is the latest Ocean liner to be built by this Fincantieri shipyard for the Norway based Viking Ocean cruises. Part of a fleet of small luxury ships being built, interiors designed by Rottet studio LA, artworks curated by ICART Oslo.
Our tapestry weave is created from the finest marine quality leather selected from out tannery in northern Italy, woven by artisans in our UK studio.
The studios specialist knowledge has allowed us to invent a production and handling methodology applied to upholstery grade leather hide. Changing the leather hides personality, eliminating distortion and skew to facilitate panel matching.
Shown here is the ocean liner in Ancona yard, followed by hand woven ivory leather in a repeating thick and thin box weave pattern, using 10 mm and 20 mm leather straps.
Ancona, Marche region of Italy.
We are delighted to be recognized as Best New Exhibitor at Decorex International 2018. Find us on Booth E34.
Terrain moulded leather
Elemental, embroidered and hand woven leather wall
Gustav, gilded and hand woven leather wall.
Hand sculpted bonze with gun metal & printed leather deco stripe.
O'Hare & D’Jafer Decorex International 2018
From 16th to 19 th September our studio will be taking up residence in the spectacular London home of the Duke of Northumberland, Syon Park London, as part of Decorex International 2018.
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