Into: BOND Hardware’s Industrial (and Existential) Foray Into Furniture
Photo by Paul Quitoriano.
“Into” is a series dedicated to objects, artworks, garments, exhibitions, and all orders of things that we are into—and there really isn’t a lot more to it than that. Today: Mark Burger on the accessories and soon to be furniture brand BOND Hardware, known for its designs that transform the ordinary and industrial into the indefinably chic.
I’M INTO BOND Hardware because I like to daydream about filling my future apartment with furniture that’s minimalist, metallic, and highly provocative. BOND Houseware, the debut line of housewares from the similarly suggestive accessories brand, has achieved just that. Their marble pillory tables serve as the perfect addition for the room that operates as a spaceship corridor from 2001: A Space Odyssey by day and an Eyes Wide Shut banquet hall by night. The buzzsaw dining tables appear as appropriate inside a Tom of Finland comic as they would in the waiting room of a doctor’s office on the moon. The furniture line is full of playful juxtapositions, taking everyday objects and shapes and presenting them in ways that distort any and all preconceived notions. While these recognizably industrial constructions demand immediate identification, their function and presentation transcend compartmentalization, questioning the nature of appearances and suggesting a reality much less concerned with clear-cut definitions. By taking designs typically associated with aggression, power, and danger (read: the traditionally masculine) and recasting them inside the spheres of jewelry and the home (read: the traditionally feminine), BOND takes the gender binary for a joyride, with room for everyone no matter where they find themselves along the spectrum.
The BOND Hardware accessories line, known for its hex nut rings and drill bit rosaries, officially unveils its first line of furniture at its Williamsburg studio tonight, which also includes a display piece called “the existential stairway to nowhere” and a cinder-block-and-glass design lovingly christened the “tumultuous end table.” In both jewelry and furniture, BOND uses an array of materials designed to be as long-lasting as they are hypoallergenic, crafting their pieces using methods that are both eco-friendly and cost-effective. The line was founded by designer and stylist Dana Hurwitz in 2012, who was later joined by creative partner and photographer Mariah Pershadsingh. Since its inception, BOND Hardware has grown into a force for edgy, ethically produced accessories and jewelry, catching the eye of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (BOND is among four other finalists for the CFDA and The Accessory Council’s Elaine Gold Launch Pad, a program designed to support emerging fashion and design talent). It’s clear, however, that BOND’s designation as a jewelry line is only one side of the prismatic label. The brand itself is evocative, as Hurwitz and Pershadsingh told me it’s not uncommon for some to blush at a name like “BOND,” especially when it’s seen alongside bold, pseudo-fetishistic designs. Indeed, they see their brand as a haven for those who don’t fit into the more mainstream fashion arena, offering a space that is polysemous and ambidextrous, open for interpretation and down for anything. Is it furniture, is it jewelry, is it a lifestyle brand, is it something else altogether? With BOND, there’s no wrong answers, or, for that matter, right ones.
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Photo by BOND Studios.
Photo by Paul Quitoriano.
Photo by Paul Quitoriano.
Photo by Paul Quitoriano.
