Studio Notes | Issue 02
THOUGHT
We are not for everyone. And we're okay with that.
We've been thinking a lot about who Dean & Dahl is for and who it isn't.
We believe objects carry presence: accumulated through making, use, care, and time. We call this relational aura. We believe the hand makes decisions a machine never will. We believe synthetic materials are a lie dressed as convenience. We believe if it can't be repaired it shouldn't be made.
We are not for fast. We are not for disposable. We are not for people who think furniture is something you replace every five years.
We are for collectors who understand that what they choose to live with shapes how they live. We are for designers who refuse to compromise on material. We are for people building spaces that outlast trends and outlive the people who made them.
Our role in this space isn't to sell furniture. It's to change the standard for what furniture owes the people who live with it.
Limited Edition 2 of 15
FROM THE STUDIO
The JoJo Chaise is not one piece. It's five.
Most people assume the JoJo Chaise is a single form. It's not.
It's four separate plaster forms: each base assembled, screened, and plastered individually. Then layered in 3-4 coats of proprietary pigmented plaster: each a different color. Then selectively sanded back by hand to reveal the chromatic depth underneath. Then stacked and assembled by hand.
There are no shortcuts in this process. Every decision is made by hand. Every surface is unique. Every JoJo that leaves this studio is the only one like it that will ever exist.
FEATURED PIECE
You have to feel this material.
We're shipping custom sample sets from the studio. Our proprietary pigmented plaster was developed over years in the woods of the Hudson Valley: long before we had a team, long before we had a studio. This material is ours. No other studio in the world has it.
These samples are pieces of us: the same material that's in our Ritz-Carlton installation, the same material that won Insider's Pick at Collectible Design Fair, the same material that's on view at Tamara Malas in NYC right now.
If you're a designer, architect, collector, or developer - stop looking at photos. Request a sample. Hold it. Feel the depth. Then you'll understand what makes this different from anything else on the market.
A PERSONAL NOTE
Every chapter built the next one.
In 2010 Gabriel and I opened a crepe shop on a corner counter with four mini fridges in a college town in Utah. Everyone told us it would fail. It became three restaurants across the state.
We sold it at its peak. Financed the buyers ourselves. Everyone said they'd never make the payments. They did. Every single one. They've grown it since, and nothing could make us prouder.
That sale carried us to New York. New York carried us to Dean & Dahl. And Dean & Dahl carried us to Nebraska: where we built a studio, hired four artisans, and developed a material that didn't exist anywhere before we made it.
Every chapter we've ever built funded the one we couldn't see yet. The Crepery was the foundation. Dean & Dahl is the evolution. And we're just getting started.
XO Brooke
THE INVITATION
Touch the material
We're shipping sample sets to designers, architects, collectors, and developers who want to experience our proprietary pigmented plaster firsthand. Photos give you 10% of the experience. This material needs to be in your hands.
We also continue to book custom commissions through the fall: furniture, wall sculpture, mirrors, lighting, and architectural panels. Any color. Any scale.
Our work is on view and available at Tamara Malas in downtown Manhattan.
143 Ludlow St
New York, NY 10002
Jo McKay - Director of Sales | [email protected]
Tamara Malas 143 Ludlow St, New York, NY 10002