If the future of design could be grasped in a fashionable accessory how would it look like? Genderless? Shatterproof? Digital? Mystical? With functions that extend human abilities? All of them, probably. Celebrating the human and nonhuman body, probably.
Here’s a list of accessories for the future human, and by that we don’t mean the human as a digital product but products that have been digitally-inspired for daily use.
Ever wanted to hide behind a beautiful ornament? Anastasia Pilepchuk can summon up these desires with her masks. Her patterns and materials channelise uncanny human expressions that combine normality and surrealism. In her masks, sentiments and stories of all kinds are inscribed: human and nonhuman stories of regeneration, congregation and solitude are some of the feelings and states her masks conjure.
Vitaly accessories contain remnants of skyscrapers, bridges or car parts is bridging the crumbles of the past with the future of experimental design: by using recycled stainless steel, the brand — established in 2011 in Toronto, is launching collections to arm yourself with nails, heels, shoulder pads, gloves and chains — just name the part of your body you want to accessorise and they’ll have you covered.
Berlin and London-based Räthel & Wolf unify no-pain-involved with versatile designs: their thick, yet lightweight accessories need no piercing, only appreciation for technique and craftsmanship — values that come through each of their pieces. Their collection range from ear cuffs and distal rings to AirPods cuffs and chains to connect pieces across. Moreover, the brand elevates the future of experimental digital design by introducing avatars wearing their pieces, and which can be downloaded by anyone.
Considered a face painter, so not an accessory-maker per se, Shanghai-based makeup artist Valentina Li creates surreal facial looks — and since recently hand looks, too — that are carried out not only with great imagination but artistic methods to attach and merge uncommon visual elements on people’s faces. The final looks are sometimes dark, sometimes evocative, sometimes romantic, but always futuristic and breathtaking. Her artistry has got her assisting on shows for Jean Paul Gaultier and GCDS.
The name says it all: Sister Morphine is all about fantasy, freedom and sensations that feel close to the body. The Paris-based brand uses regenerated nylon (from fishing nets and other discarded bits) and bio-resin to handmade sculptural accessories to adorn hands, underwear and ears — so you can always look like you’re in transit to heaven.
Graduate at the Central Saint Martins, French designer Diane Gaignoux handcrafts her elements with plastic clay and the result is brooches and asymmetrical garments that take up their own shape, their own self-defined contours. Instead of creating accessories or fashion pieces as we know them, Gaignoux transforms wearable elements into body sculptures. Are we ready to forget conventional fashion?
How to move towards the future if it isn’t with elegance, symmetry and fluidity? YunSun Jan explores the human in its spiritual form, in a pure space, imbued with protective, transformative elements in the form of halo-like figures. With her designs, the Korean metal and jewellery artist explores the boundaries of space by creating new inner and outer forms of the human body.
Ran by Zan Hyang, the brand is an upcoming jewellery house based in Berlin, with a handmade production that follows a made-to-order model. Their statement designs are epic, apocalyptic and adapted to the generation of the future: one that favours partly human, partly nonhuman aesthetics. With that in mind, asteriskonline features heavy metals that drip over the fingers, hands and ears, which incite somewhat morbid, somewhat alien feelings.
