From the CATATLYST Blog: Designs that Displace Desire

from CATALYST |  Strategic Design Review
http://catalystsdr.wordpress.com/2009/06/04/designs-that-displace-desire/

Designs that Displace Desire

June 4, 2009 

By Guest Blogger Brian Tenorio

John Maeda, in his book The Laws of Simplicity (The MIT Press, 2006), said design could take on one of three strategies: shrink, hide, or embody. While this may be significant these days as we churn out simpler, smaller, and more task-oriented devices and products, we are still creating new things. The new generation iPod meant to replace the older generations will do exactly that, replace the older units – still more stuff.

The Designs that Displace Desire (DDD) forum is a platform for discussing design solutions that encourage less consumption and emphasize the lasting value of existing items. Designs that Displace Desire is definitely not about poorly designed products that make you not want to buy. DDD is actually effective design that promotes thought, careful reflection, and a satisfaction or happiness in discovering new value in currently owned products. It can be a new use for an item that presents itself in a time-determined manner: for example, jeans that just look better after you’ve had them so long that they are worn out, eventually becoming irreplaceable. In fact, thinking about it, that may be one of the best examples of DDD.

So are we tasked here to think of how to design nothing or to stop designing? Not really. The goal is to create designs or experiences that stop us from constantly wanting other things.

In summation, since design can drive desire and consumption, it also has the ability to provide long-term satisfaction. The idea is not really about doing more with less, but doing more with what we’ve already got. Also while this call-for-comments may seem to be propaganda for anti-consumerism, it is primarily a call for excellence in design. Designs that determine satisfaction and contentment are about focusing on what we have and what we have acquired and not what we are denying ourselves.

What is total quality management? What is worse-is-better? What is value-creation? What is recycling? How will the economy be affected if non-consumption becomes popular (as it is not yet the case)? Why buy? Why not notbuy?

Please leave comments and thoughts about DESIGNS DISPLACING DESIRE here or e-mail them to: info@briantenorio.com. From your comments we shall produce a more substantial article that discusses designs that stop at nothing.

Tehran-born, Filipino-American BRIAN TENORIO is a New York-based designer, multi-awarded in print and graphic design, business and entrepreneurship, and recently in accessories design (his label was included in the 2008 book 50 Must Buys in Manila). A former correspondent of Benetton’s COLORS Magazine, Tenorio finished the Managing the Arts Program at the Asian Institute of Management. One of Manila’s most influential and widely-publicized creatives, Brian Tenorio is currently with the Design Management Program of Pratt Institute. Visit his blog, Only Superlatives, athttp://briantenorio.blogspot.com.

Brian Tenorio : reDESIGN the Philippines

September 9, 2009

Farewell Piece, circa 08-08-08

Farewell Piece, circa 08-08-08


BRIAN TENORIO: FAREWELL, MANILA
Filipino-American Designer Brian Tenorio
Takes-off for New York
in Marikina-made Designer Boots

Shoe label Tenorio Manila’s DREAMS Collection is Brian Tenorio’s parting anthology as he leaves for his sabbatical in New York this fall of 2008. The following text was written by Brian Tenorio, the Filipino designer label's Design Principal.

The foundation of all dreams is hope. Hope could then be the theme of my 2007 to 2008. It has been a while since I’ve released a statement as myself and not as the design principal of my label. You see, these two perspectives, while specially intertwined, have very different directions. Let me then write in the first person and share some learning I have from my beginnings in this industry, my short time in shoe design, and some insight on what is next. This is a “fashion show in print” in ways, as I do not attempt to showcase what is ready to wear, or what is hip. The goal of this text (and incidentally my Dreams Collection) is to inform and alert, remember, inspire, agitate, enliven, and hopefully widen the confines of what we think is real and necessary, to celebrate what is Filipino and Filipinized, and what we think is us and ours.

Creating My Mold (or Revelations as I was Beginning)

While writing this text, I am surrounded by prototypes of styles for my next set – a shoe made up of leathers from eight animal species, a shoe decked with Swarovski crystals, a pair adorned with jade, pearls, or leather straps inlaid with onyx.

What was essential when I started my work as a shoe designer was creating something from nothing. I meant to not simply produce “my version of” but to create pieces that were essentially me, footwear that spoke Filipino but sympathized with the musings and stories from the rest of the world. It was easy. Understand your environment, and produce something from it without leaving. Stay.

The result were shoe styles that could never be thought of as take-offs or “inspired from” from other foreign labels. These pieces were Filipino because a Filipino made them. A guava tree will bear guava fruits, and never apples. (And certainly not apples that look like guavas!) Hence, the molds were formed from silhouettes I dreamt of, roughened up and smoothened by challenges in production and kind words from family and friends, or people I met in the process.

The next stage in beginning things is understanding your own needs, wants, and desires. There is a difference between these three. Needs are details that will allow a designer to survive. Wants, when gotten, complete our undertakings, and allow us to do another cycle of work. Desires, when fulfilled, perfect our message and uplift the craft. Money is a need, exhibition is a want, and self-evolution is a desire. These are examples of each.

Kidskin Lining (and Other Realizations)

Work with What is Available
What is available is what can be imagined. I used to feel very sad thinking that we have very limited access to technology and materials from this country. Then I studied carefully what we have already. Since we have a limited selection of leather, I improved on my form, silhouettes, patterns, and cuts. With my mold makers, I engineered my own silhouette and contoured the slopes myself by hand. With the same kind of perforations on my shoes, I formed new shapes and figures, and created meaning and readings from them. Make what is necessary and beautiful, available.

Do Not Embellish the Exterior, Instead, Illuminate on the Essence
Younger designers will have the tendency to add or accessorize in order to highlight the value of their subjects. But really, what does not add, only subtracts and what they mean to bring out can actually already be there, lost in the layers of interpretation in colors, textures, and fabric. What young designers must work for is to illuminate the essence of their pieces. What are they about? What about these creations will improve the world, or at least, enrich an individual? What truth does it communicate? Where is the love?

You Exhale the Same Stuff You Breathe In
One should give more credit and value to his or her surroundings, for one's environment will be the basis of his ideas, dreams, and directions. A question that took me a long time to figure out was what made my styles Filipino (specially considering that I was not even born in this country—was born in Tehran, Iran—and also was on dual citizenship, Filipino and American). The answer revealed itself to me once during a talk I gave at the Asian Institute of Management. If you breathe it in, you tend to breathe the same thing out. We should then make this environment, this society, these islands, a very beautiful experience, a wonderful happy story, and most importantly a haven of love and learning for our children. We should make staying worth it, or leaving as a chance to spread the glories of Filipiniana.

Third World Blitz
(As I write this, I am listening to Five Years by the 90's Filipino band, Sugar Hiccup.) The concept of the “rest of the world” introduced to most of our generation in Benetton's campaigns in the early 90s, is back not only because the trend pendulum's tendency is to swing back, but also because we are part of the rest of the world. Apparently, while we look at what's happening in the world's fashion capitals, the creatives from these regions are also looking at us. And although we have been used to reading endearing blogs written by Filipinos about what’s hot in New York, Paris, or Tokyo, I have this theory that we can be the best only at being ourselves. We are the authority when it comes to being Filipino. The next step is to be better at how we are, and I am sure people will notice (as they have already in the last few years and the next ones, I hope).

The Silhouettes of the Future (Conversely, what dreams are made of)
The future of Philippine shoe design, I realized, may not be found in the already set-up industries in Marikina and in other regions in the Philippines. Philippine shoe design (well at least those that will come to be) now also exists in a new sector of industry—our shoe designers. Since the earlier days of Tenorio Manila in 2004, shoe design now is a recognized career option for a lot of our younger design students. Also, there are now more “out there” shoe designers with their own labels.

I feel that the future of Philippine Shoe Design should have its foundation secured onto these three different concepts:

Ecology: Love Your Environment

Tenorio Manila allows flaws in its leather, realizing that the world’s natural resources are limited and that the supply should be, as much as possible, shared equitably. Therefore, any animal, whether maimed, stricken, or nurtured with love, possesses a similar essence with any other creature. Leather from any origin deserves the same respect and integrity when finally laid onto any pair. A scar or a bite, or any similar flaw, are only markings of the creature’s story. These marks do not affect the strength and durability of the leather. This realization now outlines Tenorio Manila’s understanding of what makes a particular material good, and another, better.

Ethnology: Love Local to Go Global

I think that the world is already saturated with mixed-up ideas and a mélange of substance from everywhere, so that anything that is sincere, in pure-form, or is historically-intact turns out to be more valuable.

We then must embrace our culture and history and try to grow within them. We used to be the best shoemakers in the continent and we can be that again. The change can happen starting with the consumers by increasing the demand for Philippine-made shoes. On the other hand, improvement can happen if Filipino designers and manufacturers strive to produce better products.

Phenomenology: Go Personal to Love Global

To believe in human achievement through small personal victories is a truth I've learned (maybe again as an adult this time, in the last few years). If you pay attention very well to how you think and how you act, you will realize that within you are the same patterns of want, desire, and hunger that are present when commodities and goods are traded on a larger global level.

The Golden Age of Philippine-made designer shoes is not about quantity but quality and design. Our local manufacturers and industries should maybe welcome the designer. Shoe design means actually making wearable pairs and not just drafting fantastic illustrations. And to make real pairs, one must have the raw materials, equipment, machinery and skilled craftsmen. These components while readily found and available in our existing companies are not necessarily accessible to designers. When I was starting, the hardest part was to figure out who could make my shoes for me. And when I found some shoemakers and companies, the next obstacles was finding a way to get them to want to make for me. The third challenge involves re-training a set of craftsmen to create high-end shoes again. Decades and decades of making cheap pairs aimed to be competitive with cheaper imports from all over Asia has made it more difficult for these artisans to make very good shoes again.

The golden age of Philippine-made shoes is not about quantity but quality and design. The future of the Philippine shoe design industry is not only borne out of volumes of leather, or put together in man-hours in factories, or is written out in policies by government, but is first formed by the dreams and imagination of the hardworking creative.