PELLE’s latest collection featured in Sight Unseen’s SIGHTED
Is Design In an Age of Maximalism, Or Minimalism? The Answer Is Both — and Pelle’s New Collection Offers Proof
Are we currently in an age of maximalism, with wood paneling, hand-painted ceilings, ruffled fabrics, and decorative pillows constituting the reigning aesthetic in design? Or an age of minimalism, when sleek chrome and the High-Tech vibe have never been more popular? The answer, really, is both — the two styles have often happily coexisted in the past, and we’ve been happily embracing both for awhile now. That might be why the latest collection from the Brooklyn studio Pelle, released a few weeks ago during New York design month, appeals to us: It unabashedly embraces both extremes, comprising on the one hand a warm (yet clean-lined) wooden storage cabinet whose doors feature an original oil-pastel landscape painting by firm co-founder Jean Pelle, and on the other hand, a series of geometric steel lights inspired by ductwork and industrial machinery, plus a chain-link painting on linen. Somewhere in the middle are two other new pieces, a chandelier version of the studio’s frilly paper-leaved Lure light, and a Hoffmann-esque gridded wood armchair. Check out the full collection below, and never let anyone tell you that you have to choose between sleek and exuberant when you can have both.
