irish design studio superfolk is launching a beautiful range of furniture at this month’s stockholm furniture fair (man i wish i was there!). showing as part of their “greenhouse” section of up-and-coming international designers, superfolk is showing this beautiful collection of wooden furniture- including the bench above that looks like it’s “stitched” together. so cute. superfolk focuses on using locally sourced irish materials and finding sustainable and innovative way to work with natural materials, so i’m really looking forward to see how their work continues to grow in the future. click here to check out more of their work online- thanks, gearoid!
in the category of new and cool things, i’m always loving these cool shirt buttons from gülnur özdağlar. made of recycled pet bottles (remember gülnur’s awesome pet bottle sculptures?), this set of four buttons is being sold for $15 right here on etsy.
19 Comments
Oh these are Great! I love the red- x’s and packaging on the buttons. ANd the furniture is simply amazing.
Great to see an Irish company featured here!! Maith sibh Superfolk!
I bought some in Istanbul at the Istanbul Modern Museum. They are so cool I don’t want to use them. Just stare at them on my mood board so far.
Those Superfolk stools are amazingly clever! I’ve been seeing them everywhere online these past few days.
Good idea on the buttons, but not worth $15. I think I’d rather see this as a DIY project instead.
lara
you might be able to tackle this on your own, or a version of it, but one good thing to keep in mind when looking at handmade objects is this is the cost of labor.
to me, it looks like the sides are melted down a bit, so if she spends an hour cutting, melting and packaging 4 of these she should pay herself a living wage. assuming she gives her self a low wage of $10, she’s making less than $5, if you assume that she had to buy some of these packaging materials or the tools to make the buttons.
i understand wanting to make your own versions of things- but any handmade piece is going to need to be fairly priced, which means you have to pay the artist/designer for their time and materials- and $15 seems like a pretty reasonable amount of money if you assume even the lowest labor time of say, an hour.
grace
Grace,
That was such a wonderful reply about the true cost of handmade items vs. living wage. There seems to be a great divide out there: those who make things as a hobby and sell them for very little, and those who make things for a living and charge accordingly. It must be very confusing for buyers and frustrating for sellers, given that those who do it for a living must depend on a buyers trust that their product is worth the price. I’d love to hear more about what people think on the subject. I know it might not be the proper subject for your lovely blog BUT I really enjoyed what you wrote above!
All the best… jen
jen
i’d love to hear more about people’s thoughts on that. we’re actually starting a web series designed to educate on this topic soon :)
grace
I’m looking forward to it already : )
Have a lovely day Grace!
Jen
i LOVE the print of ireland that’s hanging on the wall. any idea where i could get my hands on one of those?
Gorgeous stitched furniture!
The buttons are so well presented. I don’t think $15.00 is too much to completely change the look of a garment. I think things on Etsy are severely underpriced sometimes, it makes me sad. People sell beautiful handmade cards for half the prices of some boring mass-produced and manufactured card. I would love a post/discussion about pricing, etc.
i LOVE the print of ireland that’s hanging on the wall. any idea where they can be purchased?
sorry for the duplicate comment – it didn’t let me know it had been published. oops! : )
lindsey
Grace, thank you for that response. You expressed what I was thinking in a much clearer and more polite manner than I could have! I’m regularly shocked by how UNDER-priced so many handmade goods on Etsy are. Sadly, the easy availability of mass-produced goods has made us all a little too expectant of ultra-low prices. (Which is precisely why Wal-mart is so successful, and why manufacturing in the U.S. is at an all-time low…but I digress.)
I’m looking forward to the series you mentioned.
I LOVE those buttons!! :-)
On another note – Grace, I really think your web series sounds very interesting indeed. I (once upon a glorious time) made accessories, mostly for brides. I know first hand what it’s like to put so much care and attention into one item, which very few people understand and are willing to pay for. They *want* the handmade ‘one-off’ item for their special day, but just don’t understand that it comes at a price. They expect it to cost the same as the highly manufactured items which they can buy at any department store. [Sigh.] When will people learn…
I like these very simple table and bench designs. By employing a thick enough slab there is enough purchase for the joinery to simply use a wedged tennon for the legs (on the benches). This matches well with the work my live edge division does, with a solution i had not thought of. I hope they do well
Dazzlingly beautiful furniture design! I like all of those things.
Thanks for posting such a great useful article and products on the Furniture & material.
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