Mirror Mirror is an interesting collaboration between SIFT Studio and EADO. The first is a collaborative design studio and the latter is an architectural design practice. They are both based in Ann Arbor, MI. The collaborative project was a finalist entry in BOFFO Building Fashion’s Linda Farrow competition. The competition tasked its participants with the design of a temporary store for Linda Farrow, the iconic eyewear brand. Mirror Mirror represents the allure of fashion by resembling a geode: a colorful vibrant core to a deceptively dull rock.
Courtesy of Adam Fure – Ellie Abrons – Christina Kull – Nick Safley
The crust is made of ‘repurposed foam pieces, stuck together and painted black.’ On the outside one wouldn’t expect the bedazzlement on the inside. Once inside, though, it’s transformed into a wonderland. What As a space, Mirror Mirror says to me: ‘Why can’t display be just as dazzling as the objects being displayed?’ Functionally, the space needs to display Linda Farrow eyewear, but it goes beyond function to describe the desires we have to shop and the appeal of fashion. Because of how unreal or wondrous the display is, the display itself becomes the displayed. We are no longer just looking at sunglasses, rather it is a much fuller and more intensified experience.
Courtesy of Adam Fure – Ellie Abrons – Christina Kull – Nick Safley
From EADO (Ellie Abrons) & SIFT Studio (Adam Fure): ‘The mirrors, some opaque and some translucent, line the interior walls and fold out to create cascading reflections and a captivating ambiguity between what is real and what is illusion. The floating “rocks” and the eyewear they display are sometimes present in the central space and sometimes concealed behind translucent walls. Thus, one’s experience is marked by simultaneous satisfaction and intensified desire—the pleasure of wearing luxurious eyewear and the tension that arises from objects withheld behind glass or present only as a reflected trace.’
EADO and SIFT Studio drew on the aesthetic aspect of both architecture and fashion. The two are visual fields. More often than not, the architecture acts as a stage for fashion, but what if both where on display?
Courtesy of Adam Fure – Ellie Abrons – Christina Kull – Nick Safley
