Marcel Wanders Forays Into Beauty Design For Mac
Marcel Wanders is a world-renowned Dutch product designer, interior designer, and art director who first gained widespread recognition in 1996 for the iconic Knotted Chair. That piece was a fusion of high-tech materials mixed with “low end” methods—the perfect statement piece that showcased his unconventional design sensibility that is holistic, quirky, and wholly original. Background Born in 1963 in Boxtel, Amsterdam, Wanders was first expelled from the Eindhoven Design Academy before he moved on to continue his studies at the Hogeschool Voor de Kunsten (ArtEZ Institute of the Arts). There, he finished his matriculation in 1988 with flying colors—having graduated with cum laude honors. Seven years later, he opened his studio in Amsterdam, and it was there where he began his prolific career that has spanned numerous continents and well-known clients.
Today, his design studio boasts of about 50 international design specialists, with more than 1,700 projects that include both private clients and premium brands across the globe that include Swarovski, Puma, MAC Cosmetics, Target, Alessi, Capellini, Bisazza, and Flos, among many others. Design Philosophy His design philosophy can be summed up in his personal mission to “create an environment of love, live with passion, and make our most exciting dreams come true.” To achieve this, he makes it a point that his creations are inspired by well-known archetypes and touch upon historical references. He wants his viewers to easily identify and connect with his work, where he seeks to uplift the visual experience by mixing unusual materials and techniques so that the result is always exciting, at times polarizing, often provocative, but never boring or commonplace. Among his peers in the design world, Marcel Wanders is often regarded as an anomaly—a true artist with a unique vision. He shuns dogmatic methodologies and cold, technocratic styles, preferring instead to infuse the human touch through sustainable design solutions that work in harmony with its surroundings, not against it. Marcel Wanders works to “create durable designs, and his efforts toward sustainability have gone a step ahead of recycling, where he has said how “people want to make things recyclable; why not just make something to not throw away?” He seeks to usher in the “new age” of design by providing a singular, unifying experience for the designer, craftsperson, and end-user. He wants to create a sense of wonder and excitement, and he does it by marrying modern world sensibilities with humanized concepts like romance, fantasy, and poetry from across the ages.
Here is more information on the MAC & Marcel Wanders collection, MAC’s luxe/couture collection for 2010. Hailing from the Netherlands, Marcel Wanders is renowned for his edgy contemporary designs. He has transformed ordinary products into works of art and has done the same for makeup, with this collaboration with MAC. The CYBEX by Marcel Wanders “Parents Collection” includes a high chair, rocker. Iconic children's furniture from the world's leading interior designer and nursery brand. The company's first foray into furniture – Wanders demonstrates that magic. Crafted with beauty and function in mind, the chair features a fashionable.
Famous Projects Commissioned to design KLM airline’s tableware, the sets effortless blend function and beauty. The stick spoon stands out in particular: here is a textured piece of twisted metal that is reminiscent of a piece of airline propeller blade, and yet it is also a simple utensil that serves the important function of mixing sugar and milk into tea or coffee. That, in itself, is a beautiful thing to behold, but the experience doesn’t end there. When six of these spoons are formed in a circle, the blades meet to re-create the look of a classic airline propeller. Recognitions Various media publications have not been immune to Marcel Wanders’ unmistakable touch.
New York Times once called him the “Lady Gaga of Design,” Business Week has chosen him among the elite roster of Europe’s 25 Leaders of Change, and in 2006, Elle Decoration named him as their “Designer of the Year.” Other prestigious art institutions and art critics have bestowed upon him and his design team various awards, including the Modern Design Collaborative Award by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as well as the 2009 Design Excellence Award for his contributions in the field of design. Recent interior projects include the Kameha Grand Zurich, the Andaz Amsterdam Prinsengracht, and the Kameha Grand Bonn. Marcel is also co-founder and Art Director at Moooi, an extremely successful design label that continues to make its presence felt around the world. He works with close to thirty designers throughout 79 countries globally. Moooi’s designs carry a distinctive, unique and quirky design philosophy summed-up in its corporate slogan: “The Unexpected Welcome”. Moooi brandstores can be found in Amsterdam, New York and London. Marcel Wanders brings the same award-winning design sensibility that features elegant, sustainable solutions to prefab homes at Revolution.
His beautiful designs for Revolution are predicated on the holistic, sustainable, and highly original work Marcel Wanders has come to be known for. REVOLUTION PRECRAFTED is a collection of limited edition, precrafted properties, including homes and pavilions. The project unites over 80 of the world’s preeminent architects, artists and designers to create an exclusive series of prefabricated, livable spaces.
The prefabricated home concept offers a solution by greatly simplifying the process — picking a design from a selection and having it delivered right to your doorstep. We break the monotony by delivering high design structures crafted by the world's leading designers and architects. REVOLUTION is a collection of limited edition, precrafted properties, including homes and pavilions. The project unites over 80 of the world’s preeminent architects, artists and designers to create an exclusive series of prefabricated, livable spaces. The prefabricated home concept offers a solution by greatly simplifying the process — picking a design from a selection and having it delivered right to your doorstep. We break the monotony by delivering high design structures crafted by the world's leading designers and architects.
From hotel suites to restaurants, beach accessories to bags and furniture to bathroom designs, Marcel Wanders has put his mind, and maverick sensibility, to them all. Marcel’s design philosophy is to bring beauty to the things that we see all the time; to raise the aesthetic bar and elevate the normality of the everyday. “It’s not just about function, it’s about having something you really love and caring about the details that surround you,” says Wanders. Little wonder, then, that his latest collaboration is with iconic cult brand MAC Cosmetics: For what could simultaneously be more everyday and utterly personal than makeup? “As a company I feel we have to explore every avenue of design,” explains James Gager, Senior Vice President and Creative Director, MAC Cosmetics, who has teamed up with many of the world’s leading trendsetters on colour collections. “When choosing MAC partnerships it’s important that there is an authentic synergy and similar philosophy shared between the brands. We are, after all, Make-up Art Cosmetics so there has to be a strong artistic association to feel it’s the perfect match.
I’m always asking the question ‘Is it artful enough to be MAC?’” Well, you can’t get more artful than Marcel Wanders. Not only is he an internationally acclaimed designer, but he’s also at the pinnacle of the Dutch design movement characterized by irreverence, risk taking and innovative design solutions – all of which are aligned with MAC’s DNA. While the makeup itself wasn’t Wanders’ remit, the colours and textures of the collection are as decadent and sleek as the packaging. Take the smooth opaque Lipsticks and ultra light Lip Glosses – both come in shades including golden frosted champagne, hot fuchsia and vampy blackened red and the Sheer Mystery Powder, which gives skin exactly that gossamer light and flawless finish Vermeer himself was known for. Predict a stampede for the False Lashes Mascara for that untold oomph this party season. The breadth of your collaborations is amazing, ranging from crystal (Baccarat), homewards (Target), interior accessories (B&B Italia), fragrance (Cacharel), lighting (Flos), bags (Mandarina Duck) beach wear (Puma) to, of course, contemporary interior design and furniture.
What was exciting to you about designing makeup? Makeup is such a wonderful invention. Women paint themselves to be beautiful, and have done so for thousands of years. This fundamental idea, and the way that it connects to art – first women paint themselves, then the painter takes his brushes to paint her – immediately interested me. Coming from the Netherlands, Vermeer is my culture and “Girl with a Pearl Earring” in particular inspired me. He is the most important painter in the world to me – to revisit his work was fascinating.
It’s such a contrast with the way we work now, which in the last few hundred years has become so mechanical. Vermeer is relevant to me because he represents the idea that there’s an interesting story to tell if you look to your world in a more poetic and loving way.
Designing beauty packaging immediately made me think of the painterly connection I mentioned before. We are creating striking tools for women to paint and make themselves beautiful. Your philosophy is “Here to create an environment of Love.Live with Passion and make our most Exciting Dreams come True”; how does this apply to your collection with MAC?
That statement is about everything that we do here. For this collection, it’s about how we’ve created a dream. Like a painter from the Golden Age and his passion, we today use the same tools as Vermeer did 400 years ago to create beauty. It’s a very exciting and beautiful sentiment to me – I feel it’s an elevating and uplifting idea to connect the past and the future in this way. Take the wonderfully intricate Luxe Brush; it was hand milled in Japan as a very classical way of giving lightness to objects. It gives common tools a beauty beyond their functionality. Yes, the names of the products themselves are steeped in Vermeer, named after the women – lovers, sisters, wives, mother – in his life.
It’s important to me that every detail of the collection works together. I would love to make things that are meaningful and emotional, not just practical. To me it’s not superficial, it’s about having a deeper relationship with the things in your life other than just ‘needing’ them. The collection is based on the idea that your tools can be your jewels.
Marcel Wanders Products
MAC & Marcel Wanders is in stores November 24th. To see the collection preview, click.