Beach collection, 2023. In this beach collection, cathected objects have been collated onto flat surface. Personal belongings reproduced in soft terrycloth, or sunning in their polymer trappings. A see-thru bag invites us to “look inside”, where we find such items as a hard drive and contact case, that is, opaque items, with a realer, out-of-reach interior. Each one is made unique by trademarked stickers, animating the brand hysterics that have turned our mythic search for identity into a punishing grind, and wondering if we can’t find sincerity there, too.

The ornate towel displays a more idiosyncratic arrangement of particulars, such as bouncy balls, windowed grills, and trace earplugs. But together they story a felt Dionysian memoir. Here appear in high-contrast, a tragic John Wick, kissing plush fishies, and a tangle of his and hers bracelets, or, contemporary pieces of an elemental romance.

cool & sexy won’t trivialize the pleasure that underpins a propensity to accumulate; they honour what is ineffable about our objects and the contexts they contain, nevertheless asking to what extent this flux of meaning can be distilled. The photographs teach us to enjoy these accessories imaginatively, and under the light of a priceless sunset (the joke being that said sunset can nonetheless be conjured, through its manifest associations, into an object and, evidently, priced.)

 

Designed by Marie Laurence Basque and Dylan Hancock. Photos by Fatine-Violette Sabiri and Shahan Assadourian. Text by Ginger Greene.