Parallel Choice Assortment 2016 / 2017

A mystery collection, an assortment by association. Colors mixed with feelings, materials full of innuendo, ghosts and shadows and something we can’t quite put our finger on: welcome to DANTE – Goods and Bads’ 2016 Collection, Parallel Choice Assortment.

When we thought about this year’s theme, we let our mind wander and marvelled at the very strange places it took us. Association is a curious thing, it doesn’t follow any obvious logic, but, like Alice goes down the rabbit hole, leads us into a world full of the subjective: fragments, dreams, the half forgotten, the semi-conscious. Parallel Choice Assortment is inspired by the whimsical aesthetic of this world.

Each year, DANTE – Goods and Bads invites a Guest to inspire, mentor or collaborate. For Parallel Choice Assortment we found the perfect match in French photographer Camille Vivier, whose artistic style is permeated by the peculiar spirit we sought for this collection. A style, as she herself puts it, of emotions and daydreams full of oddities.

For the collection itself, there will be a lot to see and feel. A folded up rug playing a trick on the eye, an odd little container wrought from industrial tube, and, of course, the material embodiment of all illusion: a mirror. We also did a lot of re-thinking, daring unusual combinations of haptic materials and colors.

As a whole, Parallel Choice Assortment resonates with combination, with the relationship of material, object and meaning, but not necessarily in any way that makes sense. Not at first sight.

This year, we followed the rabbit down the hole. Look what we found.