It shouldn’t work so effortlessly well, but somehow KALEIDO has been able to merge interior and fashion design and make it seem natural.
The debut collection, which was created by interior designer Danielle Brustman and fashion designer Michelle Boyde, was two years in the making, with the friends collaborating across continents in a call and response style.
“KALEIDO sprang to life in 2011 when I was in New York for six months and Michelle was in Melbourne,” explains Danielle. “We began KALEIDO without predetermined ideas as to where this process or project might lead. One of us would offer an idea in sketch form and the other would respond, all via email or Tumblr. An idea for a chair could provoke a design for a hat, which in turn might inspire a sketch for a light that becomes a swimming costume and so on and so on.”
This collaborative approach across design disciplines may at first glance seem incongruous, but in context, actually makes up a unique and slightly eccentric family of pieces.
While Danielle is the expert in interiors and Michelle in fashion, the beauty of working in their distinctive manner, means that they can dip their toes into other design specialties.
“It’s great having another eye, but also bringing different perspectives to the table with our individual skills base and experience,” says Michelle. “Danielle might come up with a colour palette that I’ll interpret into wearable panels, but then she’ll work with me on the finish and I’ll help her problem-solve an interior concept.”
Both having a strong interest in seeing how far they can push the boundary between interiors and fashion, Danielle and Michelle plan to interweave the two to the point that they are inseparable.
“We’re more interested in the whole than the individual parts and the play between the two disciplines,” says Michelle. “Hence the reference to ‘gesamkunstwerk’ [a German word meaning a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms].”
With a joint love of colour and line, this first collection features fashion, jewellery, stools, murals and lighting and with an aim to bring out two collections a year, there will be a lot more of KALEIDO to come.
