Aesop Fashion Walk Signature Store
Completion: 2023
City: Hong Kong
Stage Involved: Concept to Completion
Photo Credits: Aesop
The cloudy pattern board is a household finishing material that thrives in the 70s-90s. The pattern is highly recognizable as it is one of the most widely used patterns for our local furniture, especially on the folding dining table and stools. It is durable, inexpensive, and viewed as down-to-earth material that is suitable for diverse usage. Every household would have one of these pieces of furniture in those days. The cloudy pattern serves as a particularly special memory for many Hong Kongers.
Digging into the story and origins of these boards, we found one of the earliest Hong Kong manufacturers who make these boards. In the earlier days, they will produce a thousand of each cloudy pattern board every month. The cloudy pattern, according to the representative of the company, is inspired by the western style and blended with “Hong Kong favor” of colour and mood.
Today, the manufacturing process is relocated to China, while Hong Kong still kept the factory spaces as a distribution center, where we can still find many of these last remaining boards stocked. Feeling attached to these coincidental findings, the team is taking on a sentimental challenge to ourselves; we are hoping to create a store that could put these “out fashioned” materials into beautiful and meaningful use. Not only as a tribute to this cultural reference, perhaps there is a certain responsibility for new construction to find ways, responsibly, to make good of these out fashioned stock.
Thus, the team took these boards back and start to develop our interpretation, breaking down the wear and tear board into smaller pieces and re-assemble them as a cloudy pattern mosaic floor. The floor will look new, but it carries a lot of old memories that Hong Konger share.
