Chrissy Angliker

Chrissy Angliker is from Switzerland where they have something or someone called Samichlouse.  But more interesting than that is her design work, like arrow chairs and her fishing knuckles.


Chief Magazine: So, what do you have here?

Chrissy: I wanted to show you – this is my little portfolio stuff, but pretty much it tells the stories of my designs, and I first want to show you the whole fishing business because if I show you the whole thing, then you get an idea of where it all came from, and it’s just not like, “Ooh, let’s turn brass knuckles into fishing gear,” so this just tells the whole story of the inspiration. Pretty much, I learned about fishing, and I fished the first time last summer. I fished at my friend’s house, who’s loaded and who has all this gear and shit, and I didn’t know what to pick, so I was like, “Okay, this is not what I thought fishing was about.” Oh, there I caught a flounder – that was on the boat.

That’s awesome.

Yeah, and so my whole inspiration was that you don’t have to look like a fisherman; you don’t have to be a certain person. It’s not about the gear; it should be about the person and the personality – that should be in the foreground and all the gear should be in the background. And that’s where then the knuckles came from. If you have these fishing rods and shit, it ties you down, and you’re automatically marked as a fishing person, and you don’t need to be. You should be able to go fishing whenever the hell you want. So I can go fishing whenever I want. I just like that it’s more about the person. And then the whole idea also was that fishing itself is, if you think about it, one of the most primal things people ever did. They did hunting, you know, fishing, and then self-defense to survive, and so I really wanted to focus on that instead of focusing on what exists now, so I wanted to go back to that starting point. But then combine a little bit of what is around now as in self-defense and in being in Brooklyn and all the violence and stuff, and I was like, “Well, I guess that could be an inspiration.” So as in weapons, I looked at all these different weapons, and I was like, “Brass knuckles are really fucking primal in the means of what exists now, and you could make your own really easily and all this stuff,” and that’s the most simplest way to really defend yourself or if you need to do that, and then, with fishing, all you need is a string and a hook, and so I was like, “How can I make this ultimate little survival tool, that if you need to defend yourself, you can, and if you need to feed, you can.” So that’s where the whole thing came from, and then this little book, it’s other little examples of, like, a little fishing wallet.

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What’s the deal with the fish? What is this?

Oh, I designed little lures, and they’re made out of feathers and all these little things, and they’re designed to be flat, and then you put them into the fishing wallet. You have your string, you have your hooks, and all this shit folds up, and if you would buy it in the store, it would hang like this, every fishing person would have their own wallet because I like when people have their own thing that they can hold onto instead of always having disposable stuff, so this could be disposable, but this is always, there’s no age, wisdom, and what not, so you fold that shit up, put it in there, fold it up, and then the whole thing is that at the end you go fishing like this, you don’t need more, and in general I think everything is over-designed, and I think one really needs to design backwards. I think that’s a thing in the market that is missing because everyone is over-designing and wanting to do more or the cell phones and everything are now cameras and music things and stuff, and it’s too much, and I think we should find out what is the most minimum you can do to survive.

Just keep it functional.

Yeah, yeah. So that was the inspiration for the fishing thing.

So do you make the wallet as well?

Yeah, but it’s a really rough mock-up, but I want to work on it and see if I can get that stuff done, too.

How much of it do you have that is available for sale now? Do you sell the fish?

No, no.

[laughs]  “No, no.”

There would have to be more research done with the materials and manufacturing. That would be a pretty tricky thing.

So those are all handmade?

Yeah.

Okay. Because the way you design those, they just look like fine art - pieces of very well-crafted, unique things. They’re really pretty; it’s really nicely done.

The thing is, in a way, they’re nicely done, they’re done very simply, so if I could figure out a way that I could mass-produce them and find a system of how machines can do it and stuff, and then still have something, like, the character to be unique, that would be important, but, again, that’s a lot of work and a lot of talking to manufacturers and stuff. But here’s the thing: me and my friend Dan, we want to start a company, and our first thing is going to be the knuckles. We kinda want to really work on that together, and then see how we can we really finesse all this shit and bring it out there

What are you going to try to do in addition to the knuckles? What else are you going to have the company focus on?

Well, first the knuckles, and then the next thing would be the idea of the wallet and pretty much have that all together and then also having kind of its identity, create its identity a little more because right now that’s a little ghetto and bootleg and stuff, and we have to think about how that should be, so pretty much we’re talking about that but we’ll have that rolling in 2007. [laughs]

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That’ll be rolling out in 2007.

Oh, do you know what?

What?

I didn’t tell you. I’m so pumped about this. So guess who contacted me last week and wants to write about the fishing knuckles?

Who?

Playboy Indonesia.

Really?

[Laughs] Yeah.

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That’s awesome.

Yeah.

How did Playboy Indonesia…?

I know. I forgot to ask him. I was just, like, “It would be a pleasure.”

That’s good. Good.

Yeah, and so I sent them all this shit.

Isn’t he going to jail? The editor?

I have no idea.

Did you hear about the new thing with him?

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No.

Because I think Playboy Indonesia, and I could be mistaken because it might be Playboy Something-Else-Over-There, but that might be the one Playboy where they’re not allowed to show nipples, or they’re not allowed to be nude at all.

[Laughs] Isn’t that in America?

Damn you. No, that’s Indonesia; maybe Indonesia. It’s one of those countries over there. It’s very Muslim. Very proper. And the editor printed pictures of naked women anyways.

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Of nipples.

And put it out. Nipples.

Oh, shit.

Crazy bastard.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, he’s going to prison. For, like, three years or something. He’s going to trial now, and it’s absurd.

Oh, man. So that means the Playboy that I’ll be getting won’t even have nipples in it? I was, like, “Ah, man, my knuckles and nipples on the same page.”

Okay. That’s good. So you’ve been in Brooklyn seven years?

No, in Brooklyn four years.

Okay, where else were you in America?

In Massachusetts.

And how was that?

Yeah.

Yeah?

It was all right. I went there to high school for art and shit.

Oh, was that the walnuts?

Yeah, the walnuts.

All right.

I was a walnut. It was so pathetic, but I liked it a lot, though. I did a whole lot of painting there, and I thought that was what I was going to do, and then I got kind of bullied into the design and everything.

Really?

Yeah.

So you started off painting?

Yeah, painting and sculpture and all that, but I really liked painting, and it was going quite all right for me, too, because I had some shows and stuff, but then when it was time for college, my parents were like - well, we went to Pratt, and then the stupid guy that takes you around campus and looks at your portfolio was, like, “You shouldn’t do painting - you should do design,” and then my parents heard that, and they’re, like, “Oh, Chrissy, you have to do design now” and stuff.

Really? They pushed you into it?

Yeah, so I didn’t want to do it.

Well, are you happier now with design?

Yeah, all I had to do was redirect my focus of painting into design, so I still use the same process and the same passion that I used in painting, and I just translated it into design.

What kind of paintings were you doing when you were doing paintings?

They were big. I did a lot of oils; I really liked oils. I don’t know. I was kinda young. I don’t know - you have to see them. It’s hard to explain, and also I don’t really think about them anymore. It’s more the design thing.

You’re focused on the others.

But back then they were pretty realistic and that kind of stuff. I don’t know.  The thing with design is - I don’t really like products that much. I think it’s very sad when people define themselves by the products they have. And it’s the kids who have the really nice sneakers, and you can’t have them - those kinds of things. I like style, I like that kind of stuff, but I don’t like that defining people because it lies about the person.

Yeah, that’s interesting.

I just want to say that I’m aware of that and that’s how I also want to design – that it should be more about the person. I should design for the person instead of design so that the design is in front of the person, and then it gets foggy who the person is.

Instead of providing costumes.

Yes, exactly. Yeah, I’m really not into that. And also if an idea is not good, you should not do it, ‘cause lots of kids, they want to do designs so that they can be a designer, and I don’t think that’s very good. You need to not do that.

[Laughs] Okay. So what kind of stuff were you into when you were a kid? Were you into painting? Were you into anything artistic?

Yeah, everything. I started at a really young age. Well, first I drew always, like, cartoons and shit, and I would give it to my friends ‘cause they liked it. So it started out like that, and I would always sculpt things out of anything. And I played a lot in the woods and nature and stuff, so that’s my biggest inspiration, is nature, because it’s the craziest thing that we’ll never understand, and I like that. So that’s where it kind of all comes from.

Wait, so where did you grow up?

In Switzerland. Until I was sixteen, I lived there.

What kind of games did you play in the woods? Because everybody does different stuff.

You really want to know?

I really want to know.

Wow. Let me tell you – there was this girl Angie, and she was two years older than I was, and so I always looked up to her, and she was the gang leader, and I was her best buddy. And then there was some couple other kids that kind of were with us, but we were the two most hardcore ones in the group, and pretty much we were black panthers, like the animals, and we had our little codenames. My name was How-him.

What was your name?

How-him.

How-him. Okay.

And her name was Howdy-how.

Howdy-how.

Yeah, it was really retarded.

What age were you guys?

Like, five.

Oh, wow. All right.

Yeah, we were young. And then we did it until it got old, you know?

Yeah.

And then what we would do is climb trees and just explore the woods all day, and we knew parts of the woods like no other people, and we had names for trees and we knew so much about nature and about the rivers and what kind of bugs and what kind of lizards you could find and which ones would bite you and crazy stuff. And there’s so many times that we did stuff and we almost died. I once fell off a tree, from the top, and she went to go catch me, and I almost crushed her.

Wow.

So it was this really intense thing of getting to know yourself and your boundaries, just these two little kids, and you wouldn’t tell your parents. And then I once got bit by a mole.

[Laughs] Like, a mole?

Yeah, like, a mole.

Really?

Yeah, shit like that would happen.

Where did a mole bite you? On your hand or your foot?

On my finger. Because it came out of the hole, and then Angie was like, “Go catch it,” and like, “Okay,” and so it bit me. And the thing is, a mole is blind, and I still think it’s very weird.

Did you just put your finger up and you didn’t even touch it?

No, I held it, and its reflex was to bite whatever touched it.

Sure, okay.

And then I thought I had rabies, and then I didn’t want to tell my mom. It was pretty bad. So you get all those experiences.

Sure, and you’re interacting with nature at that age; it feels like a natural thing where it’s very human in a primal sense.

And you get confronted with these things, it’s like this mini-survival thing that you learn, and I think that’s so, so valuable, and it’s also so valuable to be really independent and explore stuff and not tell anybody that would kind of be mad at you, aka parents.

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Right. Tell them nothing.

We did a lot of that stuff. That’s why it’s the fishing thing - I think that will always be a thing of what I’m into.

It makes sense that you had a really early exposure to the natural world, and then interacting with that, at that age, you don’t really come in with a lot of preconceptions. Basically, you just don’t bring any baggage and bullshit with you. You’re just kind of a blank slate interacting with animals and shit, and that’s the way to do it.

Also, the people are not telling you anything. Yeah, I had my toys; I had ponies and everything. My Little Ponies, you know those pink ones?

Yeah. [Laughs]

I had all that stuff, but if you’re not forced into that market – you have this choice of just being with this stuff that is so real – that’s just priceless.

Well, it’s a hundred times better.

I know.

Because that stuff doesn’t go away. Nature and the natural world never become irrelevant.

Yeah, and it doesn’t lie to you ever. And I like that; it’s very honest. But I think that’s important, and I think that’s important with what I want to do. I want to be very honest with what I design and why, and be okay with it, you know?

Yeah. How’s the reception been to the fishing knuckles?

It was good. I finished them in school in May, and already then the people liked them a whole lot, and I gave it to some friends to wear, and then people would be like, “Oh, I saw a friend that was wearing them,” so it went really quick. And then I had them in a design show in DUMBO, and people liked them there. And then this girl from designsponge – that’s a website where they write about all these designers – she interviewed me, and she really liked all my work. She came by the school and then she looked at my portfolio, so she wrote this thing about me and my designs, and then she would always kind of look at what I came up with next, and then she saw the knuckles, and so she wrote about that. That was the first press I got, and then once that went out, I went home to Switzerland where I finished school, and then, from then on, I just got a lot of people contacting me because they would look on that designsponge thing. Then, over the summer I finally figured out how to make my website all right because before that it was super shitty.

I was going to say, it’s a nice website, well-designed.

Oh, thank you. [laughs] You should have seen it before because it had leopard jpeg shit on it. Because my dad did it, and the font was blue and ugly, and the background was white, and it had no design work on it.

It had a leopard.

Yeah, one that was running.

[laughs]

It was so stupid.

That’s precious.

So I didn’t tell anybody about it, and then finally I went home to Switzerland, and then I was like, “Oh, my God. I’m out of school, I don’t have a job, I’m so fucked; what am I going to do?” And I hate computers a whole lot, but then I was like, “Okay, Poppy, show me how you did the website. I’m gonna fix the shit.” And he was like, “What?” And I was like, “Mm-hmm.” So that whole month I was home, I just took all the shit in my portfolio and thought about how I wanted to share it with people, and the way I communicate best is to share through images, through pictures, because that’s how I think. I don’t read, really; I don’t know this writing. I know this pictures or objects.

Well, and that works anyways internationally.

Yeah, exactly.

So that’s perfect.

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Exactly. Because words - they can be understood in so many different ways, and I always misunderstand everything. You just got to be honest. And so I was like, that’s what I’m going to do. And so I did that, and so then I emailed the girl from designsponge, and I was like, “Hey, I fixed my website and all my things are there,” and then she wrote a bigger thing about it, and then I started to get random press, like from this one Hungarian magazine did a thing about my chairs, like this one, the arrow chair – I can’t explain it to you. Oh, I like geometry a whole lot; nature and geometry are my interests.

So they wrote about that, so I got that press, and then, after that, all these people kept contacting me. Because I’m a little shy and I won’t really go out and contact them, but if they contact me, I’ll give them the information, no problem. And so that’s what kept happening. Do you know the website core77?

Huh-uh.

It’s like a big designer website. That’s where the design geeks go. There’s this one girl that works there and this teacher that I had that I really, greatly respected that kind of runs the show – they’re like, “We want to write about your knuckles,” and I was like, “Pssh, really?” And then they did, and then, from then on, it went pretty quick, and I got press in the Cool Hunter Magazine. Oh, and then some crazy religious website wrote about me, too.

No...

Yeah, it’s so funny.

What was their take on you? What did they think?

No, it was written really cool, and I was like, “Oh, that’s interesting.” And then I went to read about them, and I was like, “Oh, my God, those are really crazy Christians.”

Wow.

So random people started writing, and I got press and stuff, and then I heard from Playboy, and I was like, “Okay.” Word is spreading, and that’s really interesting.

That’s great.

Yeah, and then I had a lot of interest in these lights that I designed that are made out of measuring tape.

Those are really cool.

Yeah? You like them?

Yeah, I do. Where are those available?

Well, also at the Future Perfect. Dave, the guy that has the store, he’s holding onto them right now. I think I’m getting press in El Décor in Russia and then Glamour Italy and some other crazy Italian magazine that’s between Vogue and Wallpaper, they described it, and they’re all writing about the lamps, so they liked that. And so what I did is I gave them the contact, as in, if you want a light, then contact the Future Perfect, so that I don’t have to deal with it because you get kind of suddenly really busy.

That’s great that they’re going to handle that for you.

Yeah, I hope they will. But the hard thing is, I’m busy because I have a job and all because I have to make money.

Pay bills.

Yeah. So I’m working a whole lot: I work until six, I go home and work some more, but I really love it, so I kinda got to do what I got to do.

Well, it’s your passion, so you do what you have to do to pay the bills, and then you dedicate the rest of your time and effort to the thing you care about. That’s cool.

I’m really, really serious about this; I want to do this, and most of all, I want to enjoy it, and I want to share it. With art, the process of making it is mine. That’s like completely mine, but then the product – that’s none of my business anymore. That’s for everybody else. When I would paint, I would paint and be really into the thing, but then once it’s done, I never had a problem giving it away because that’s what I made it for. If I make something, I’m not making it for me; I’m making it for them, but making it is for me. When I said I that had to translate the way I do art into design, it’s the same business. The way I work, the way I think, it’s the same as I did art. And then whenever I’m done with it, it needs to communicate so that I can share it with people, and they get it then, and it’s for them. And then I don’t have to worry about it.

It’s a free thing.

Yeah, it’s a weight off my shoulders. They can deal with the product. It’s like giving presents.

[Laughs] That’s a nice way to think about it.

Yeah.

So explain to me the process of actually making the knuckles? How did you initially make them? I understand the thought-process behind it, but just the physical manufacturing of it?

Well, first I drew them, and then, again, there’s brass knuckles out there already, and they have a certain design, so I just had to look at them. The system has four rings and this one thing that sits in your palms, so that when you punch, you know…

It braces.

Yeah, it stays in your hand. So all I had to do is really understand that that’s how it works, and then I never looked at the knuckles again because I don’t want to do that – I don’t want to copy. And then the rest - it’s like this approach of really simple geometry, so that when you look at it, it’s coherent and very clear. I don’t like decoration; I want it to be as simple as it can be because then if anybody wants to do this kind of thing, they can decorate it. They can make it, like, with, ooh. But then I just want to give the foundation. You can always add to stuff, but I think it’s a nice thing if you can make something that you can’t subtract of. It’s, like, that’s that.

Very minimal.

Yeah, so I always try to do that, and also, as all my designs, if I show you the other things, it’s all very minimal. Because, also, the way I design is I take things and then I break them down into its most simple components, and then those components I take and assemble back together to become something new. And I could show you that with the chair; that’s very obvious there - the arrow chair. So that’s why there’s the knuckles, and then it’s all about the function, so the reason why this is not as arched is because you want to be using it like this, and then you want to be using it like this. So it’s like half comfortable each way, instead of really comfortable this way…

And then horribly uncomfortable the other way.

Yeah, so it’s, like, compromising. But the thing is with the company that I want to do in 2007…

Do you have a name for the company, by the way?

No.

You have to think about that.

I know.

[Laughs]

But we have the logo.

Okay.

I’ll get back to you on that.

Sure, sure.

I think I dreamt about it last night. I don’t remember. [laughs] But that’s the thing Dan and I are going to do: we’re going to take this and figure out the best way to make it as comfortable it can be both ways and also different manufacturing methods. I want this edge to be gone; I want it to be broken and soft ‘cause right now it’s laser-cut.

No, it’ll cut you.

But then again, the way I’m presenting this, it’s very raw. It’s this raw, simple idea, and it’s reflected in also the way it’s made – it’s out of this flat material, laser-cut, finished. It’s very raw, it’s very not, like, finished, and da-da-da. But then the other version, I want to do a different story about it. Same idea, but different treatment, so that it’s really comfortable, like that is all that it can be.

How many different colors and combinations have you made, do you know? Do you just pick randomly sometimes?

Uh-huh. I’m pretty picky. Right now, I have four colors out that I’m selling, but then the idea, what I want to do, is sell those four and whenever I really think the color pilots should change, then I’ll change it and stop the color pilots that I have out right now. But then what I want to do is have those sell, but then have certain knuckles, I want to make limited runs because this is a limited run right now because it’s double-layered. This is more expensive to do, harder to do, harder to cut, there’s more error when you cut it - so if you get one that works out, it’s worth more, and it’s more interesting. Then I had triple-layered ones, too. So I want to do a lot with that. What I really want to do is make them out of wood so fucking badly.

Really?

Yeah. Because, think about it – if you go fishing and you’re on this little bridge, right? And you’re fishing, and then you’re not paying attention, and then this fish bites, and it rips the knuckles right off your hands because you were not paying attention enough, falls in the water - with plastic, it would sink, probably, if it’s the heavy kind.

You don’t think this floats?

I don’t know.

I think it floats. I don’t want to ruin your theory.

Well, it seems kind of heavy, and then also it’s the weight on it.

Oh, yeah. It’ll go.

That’s the thing. But then I think, if you have a nice wood, maybe it would hold up, and the weight won’t put it all the way down, and it more likely would float. Like a buoy.

A buoy. Yeah.

So first of all, that. But then if you’re on the bridge and you still can’t get the knuckles back, at least it turns into driftwood and won’t pollute the ocean.

Oh, that’s nice. Keeping it very natural.

Yeah. So I want to do that angle, too.

What are the colors that you’ve got out now, and what is the triple one?

The triple one was orange, white and black, I think, or red, white and black. I did two kinds of triple ones, but I gave them to all my friends already.

It’s okay.

But once I have a little more cash, I’m going to make more. The colors I have out right now is the see-through coffee-black, the ones we were fishing with, and then the solid orange, and then it’s in between this green and yellow, it’s like this obnoxious neon, for the hipster kids. [Laughs]

Know your market.

And then, what is the other color? Green edge – that’s the best of all! [Laughs] That’s my favorite; it’s the one where you look through it, and it’s clear, but then you hold it like this, and then you see the green edge.

Mmmm, so good. And that makes me want to make it out of glass because it kind of looks like glass.

Oh, my God. If you make it out of glass, you will be sued.

You think?

It has to have warranties all over that thing, saying, don’t punch with this, don’t… be punched with this. Because if I punch someone with glass, and it breaks, I lose four fingers.

Yeah, but then you were the one punching, so I guess it’s all right, right?

Right, but this is the country that sues you when it spills its own cup of coffee.

It’s so stupid, right?

I know. Well, what do you think about lawsuit culture? I’ll ask about that.

Oh, God.

What are your thoughts?

It’s so fucking stupid. Oh, my God. It’s so fucking stupid. It’s like, you fall, and you blame somebody else. It’s like everybody is two years old in this country – no, she did it. And then they want money, and it makes everybody rotten. Again, it’s not honest. It’s total bullshit, and nobody’s standing up for what they do.

Yeah, no responsibility.

And O.J. Simpson, and all this shit. [Laughs] It relates.

It does; it does relate, but just by a hair.

Okay, you can scratch that. That was off-the-record.

Okay.

But do you know what I mean?

I know exactly what you mean. I’ve recorded all of this, so we’ve gotten very off-subject. Are the lamps available at Future Perfect if somebody wanted to purchase them?

Yeah, you could call them up and be like, “Rumor has it that you’re holding onto the lamps.”

Okay, so we’ll have to use rumor.

No, Amanda, the girl, said that what’s-his-name has them, but they’re so busy right now, they probably couldn’t figure out where to put them.

Right. You have to call ahead.

You just call in and ask about it, and I’m sure you could get them that way.

So your lamps are available through appointment.

Yeah. [Laughs]

Very good. What about the chairs? Are they fabricated?

No, and I want to work on that. Chairs and stuff – that’s a big deal. That’s again, manufacturing and getting a good price point. I haven’t had time to do that kind of stuff, but that’s what I want to do in 2007.

You’ve got a big year ahead of you.

Yes, I do.

Excellent. What do you have that you’re looking forward to, other than the company. What are some of the other products or design elements that you’re going to be in 2007? Because right now, we have the fishing knuckles, we have the lamps, and we have the chair. Do you have anything else?

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This is another thing I designed – this fire extinguisher.

Oh, wow. Really?
 
[Laughs] I designed it in product design class at Pratt. Rita Su Siegel, who is a very smart headhunter lady, and a tough cookie, noticed it, and she was like, “That’s good.” And then she told me to submit it to the biggest design competition in the world pretty much, and let me tell you –submitting that thing was hard because you have to write five pages about the thing! And then you have to make a one-minute movie about it, and that’s where Nick did the voiceover, and we had him put on a British accent so that it sounded really professional.

Because we sound like dirt bags, let me tell you right now. No one listens to us.

You did such a good job, man. It was so good. And then our friend Colin – he helped me actually do the movie. And then I had to send in high-resolution images.

How long is the movie?

One minute.

We’ll have it at the bottom where the readers can watch it or download it.

It’s so funny. I told Colin to make it sound kind of a ‘80s science movie, where it’s like, Doo-doo-doo-doo, you know.

[Laughs]

That’s the inspiration. I’m trying to explain why this is the way it is. And so it’s like, Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, and then Nick comes in and is like, [in British accent] “A fire extinguisher is more than just an object.”

Excellent.

And he keeps going like that.

That’s fantastic.

In, 2007, they’re going to decide who wins and shit, but, dude, the fact is that major companies submit their shit there, and then they have their little 3-D bimbo do the whole movie, so I had to scrape this shit together with Nick and Colin and figure this out. So I was like, I’ll just do it the way I can stand up for it. And I love the whole movie; I think it’s great.

I know I won’t win or anything, but I had to do it because of that lady, Rita Suseigel – because she’s a very important person and I didn’t want to disrespect her. That’s another thing – you got to do what you got to do, and I need to do that right now. Respect certain people for what they know and what they tell me to do.

And just appreciate the fact that they support you in any way with advice.

Very much so. So it’s a lot of got-to-do-what-you-got-to-do right now.

Well, sure. I’m so happy I have you saying that on tape. [in Swedish accent] “Oh, you got to do what you got to do. Basically.”

[Laughs] It’s about paying respect and knowing that a lot of people know shit better than you do. And I don’t like those people that think…

Oh, that they’re God’s gift.

Yeah. You need to be sure about what you do, and, again, you need to be honest, but you need to be able to see and recognize and respect the people that know shit better than you. It’s a total respect thing. And you also need to know where your place is. And that’s really important – the whole awareness and respect. Very, very important.

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What else do you have? You have a fire extinguisher, you have the arrow chair.

I have the go-go chair.

You have bad-ass fishing. What other little novel do you have for me?

This is the go-go chair. This is the first series of chairs that I designed. So this is how it works – here, let me tell you a story.

All these books have simple geometry on top of them to show how, if you condense this whole thing, what shape I would be dealing with, if this is all based off of a triangle. Pretty much this was the first chair I’ve ever designed. They were like, “Okay, design a chair,” and I was like, “Oh, shit. Oh, shit.” And so I was like, Okay, let me break it down. And so I wrote down terms that I thought were really important, like classic, lounging, timeless, simple, some power, character – character is the key. And then I drew a little sketch of how I think somebody should lounge. Then I was trying to define it more, so there was more words written and more shapes drawn, and then suddenly triangles started to filter out because I realized, if you have triangles juxtaposing each other, they have so much character – they can do so many things.

More a rooster design than an owl design?

Well, I have the whole animal thing going, remember? Like the nature stuff? Oh, and I purchased this crazy rooster book and this crazy owl book. Because I then went to the store and I’m craving character, and then I went thorough these books and they’re just killer. Again, if you’re looking for anything, you can find it in nature. And then you abstract it, break it down, build it up again, make it your own. So it was a mixture again of working with geometry as a translation of the character that I saw in nature, which was roosters and owls, and then it ended up being more owl than rooster.

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And now you’ve drawn owls and roosters – no, just owls. Those are just owls.

Just owls, yeah. So I got different characters…

[laughs] I just like that it’s just owl eyes, and one is angry, one is surprised, another one concerned; that’s good.

But, see, then they translate to abstract forms.

They really do.

So what I did is take what is really out there, what we all recognize, break it down through what I wanted to do, which is the triangles, and then build this back up and make this three-dimensional study that symbolizes this, an abstraction. So that’s really how I work consistently throughout – that’s kind of my process, and I love doing that. So once I did a whole bunch of these, I felt comfortable enough to kind of invent my own character – these are characters, but then what’s my own character that I want to invent? And then also, at the same time, you have to look forward and have this vision of the finished thing, even though you don’t know what it is yet. I just knew it has to be shiny and clean and crisp, and so that was important. And then I had to build the whole thing. I used asymmetry in my chair.

Oh, wow. I just noticed that.

The whole thing – I was like, Okay, design a lounge, and so I looked at all these lounge chairs, and I was like, They’re so fucking static. And also the backs of the lounge chairs are rarely taken into consideration – it’s just cut off. And I wanted the piece to be three-dimensional. I saw my chair in a big space where, if you approach the person from the back sitting in the chair, you only see the back of the person, but the chair makes up for not seeing the front of the person. It’s about three-dimensionality if you’re making something three-dimensional. So I worked with reversing the side so that it’s more than having just this static chair that feels like sitting – I wanted a chair that feels like it’s moving, that feels
like it’s going. So that’s why it’s the go-go chair. Get it?

Thanks for breaking that down for me. Thank you very much.

So then once it was asymmetry, I was like, “Wait a minute. Then I make it both ways.”
Because this design – it’s all about the person’s character and putting them on a pedestal because it’s about the person and not the product as much, but they both have to be able to stand on their own. But once they get together, they have to be looking good together. So that’s why this one is this way, this one is the other way, and then you can put them together, keep them separate, and it’s also got a person being able to make choices.

So it’s also about a person making choices and, again, being honest and not being wishy-washy and being okay with whatever. So if you have these two chairs and you’re showing both – because of the asymmetry, you have to figure out how you feel comfortable. Do you like to lean more like this?

Oh, you have to really make that choice and stick with it.

Yeah, because if it’s symmetrical…

You’ve got options.

You don’t have to make a choice unless you’re fully so crooked, and here you have to work to stay.

So here, each one – not each one, but there’re options between the two.

There’s options and there’s choices to be made which tells you more about the person that sits in a chair and that made the certain decision.

See, that’s unique, that you actually have to almost demand the customer make that choice and be aware, at least, of the option.

It’s like, “Put your fuck foot down, and make up your mind.”

Yeah, it’s your furniture. You should give a shit one way or another.

Yeah, and I think that’s nice if people can do that. Or if they don’t want to do that, they can get both.

Yeah, the wealthy would just get five of them. Those bastards.    

As a complement, I made a little side table and then, again, think about – you’re walking into this room, and you see this one person sitting in this certain chair that they picked, sitting a certain way. You already can tell about their character by the way that they sit and by the way they hold themselves, and this side table – the only area you can put stuff in is right there, so you can’t clutter it. You can only put one or two things in. So if you walk into this room and you see this person sitting there and you see their newspaper there or their book there or their cigar there, you know about them and their one product they want to put on a pedestal. So it’s this whole sense of getting to know the person, and you didn’t even ask for it – they had to do it. It’s them. It’s not the product – it’s them.

The product is actually forcing them to be them.

Exactly. And I like that because there’s nothing I love more than when you see a person really being who they are. And so I want to bring that out in people: character.

Let's alk about that arrow chair. Because I really like that chair.

Here, again, it’s really about my process, so what I wanted to do is take something that is two-dimensional and then break it down into its most simple components and then put them back together in three dimensions and turn it into functional furniture pieces. That’s what I told myself to do. So, it’s like, alright, I’m into arrows. This is just a small palette of arrows, but I went through every possible arrow there is and tried to understand what makes an arrow an arrow. So it’s, again, it’s this means of breaking down, so this part is really functional – this is what points. This is decoration. What is this? Is this necessary? So it’s questioning the arrows that are out there. Does it need shape? Is it all line? So I did all that until I decided which arrow I wanted to work. So I decided I wanted to work with an arrow which is composed of two equilateral triangles joined at the tip.

Real geometry there.

[laughs] Yeah. So, again, it’s already taking the arrow and breaking it down to...

Proper geometrical shapes.

So this is the only thing I gave myself to work with. And then from there, I was like, “Okay, out of this I have to make a chair, so what am I going to do?” And I was like, “Okay, I need to make create materials.” So out of this you can see that, from this, you can get a form, and, from this, you can get an outline, and that form and outline have a very serious relationship, but they’re not the same thing. Due to the geometry, you can scale either arrow, and then, due to geometry, the angles stay the same, so you can move the inner arrow into the outer arrow. So remember this thing here?

Yeah.

And then that translates into three dimensions.

Oh, God. That’s that whole thing.

Yeah. The black frame is the outer arrow – is the outline – and the inner thing is the orange form. So it’s really trying to understand what is already out there – what this one thing can give me – and then only work with that, and then create something new. So that’s how this chair evolved out of just bare bones that there is. And this is just the segment of how I work – whenever I have ideas, I sketch little drawings, and then right away build little mini-models to see how they can work in reality, and then I discard them if there’s not enough, but then this one I realized there was something going on. The whole thing about this chair is to make it really comfortable because that was a goal. It was like, okay, let’s translate this arrow into three dimensions, but it needs to be a furniture piece, which means it needs to be comfortable. So I had to build this whole buck model to get the right angle of that curve and then translated it into a three-dimensional draft, and then translate it into a real draft, and then brought it to the welding grind - he burned up the whole draft – and then the chair got made. And then, again, details are very important and understanding line and form and contrast of materials.

That was a good choice of materials for the back.

Thank you. It gets a lot of controversy – some are like, “I don’t know,” and some love it, so it’s like a love/hate relationship.

It’s just love on this side of the table. That’s great.

[laughs] So, that’s that.

Who in design are you into? Even if you don’t know their name and you just know there’s this thing that’s amazing. Is there anything that strikes up?

In design?

What are you really into and impressed by now?

I like Alberto Giacometti, the painter - well, he’s more known as the sculptor, but I love his late, late paintings because you can tell that he was a sculptor for years and years and years, and then towards the end, before he died, he went back into painting, and you can tell that he’s painting with a sculptor’s mind, and that just fascinates me. Again, it fascinates me how honest and how real his work, and that’s an inspiration to my work and my transition of trying to go from art to design and, in a way, not seeing a difference between art and design. So he’s a really, really big inspiration to me.

Also, Neil Young music, Bob Dylan music, and most of all nature.  I bought a Dennis Mcnett "wolf" ‘cause I like his work lately.  And now and then Swiss Flokart seems to be getting to me…

Is there anyone you know of now that - you respect their work, but they’re not getting enough press. Like someone that you think should have more attention that you just want to give a mention to.

There must be.

Think back throughout your life – give me a crazy story of when you either thought you were either going to die or you were going to be killed.

I was at this crazy snowboard camp when I was thirteen, and it was labeled this Christian camp, and that was the trick how we got our parents to sign us up for it, but it was this camp where we could smoke a whole bunch of pot and snowboard all day and get really wasted.

Awesome.

I don’t know if you should publish that, but it’s cool.

Well, we’re not going to say the name of it, so it doesn’t matter.

Okay, and then pretty much I used to ski and then I switched to snowboarding, and then once we were all pretty fucked up, and we were up on the mountain, and we decided to snowboard down the mountain with torches in the middle of night ‘cause they do that. And I was like, “Yeah, I’ll go,” but it was really for me because I just learned how to snowboard, and I was holding this fucking torch and it was dark and I didn’t know where I was going. I gave the torch to the other person and tried to follow the other person. Then I lost the group, and we were going down this narrow edge of the mountain, and they have safety nets because pretty much, if you go down, it’s, like, 300 meters down, and you’re dead. And I kinda didn’t know what was going on, so I was just going there. And then suddenly I was flying, and I was hanging onto that safety net.

No.

Yeah, so that was pretty rough. That’s one time I almost went. And then the other time was, I thought I was going to die when I went on my friend’s sailboat – I think that was like, two years ago. The whole day, my parents were like, “Chrissy, you have to be careful if you sleep on a sailboat, in case a storm comes and lightning hits,” and then my grandma said the same shit, and  then somebody else said the same shit, and I was like, “Look, it’s like nice out.” Then we got there, and then from far away, we were on the boat in the middle of the lake – it was tied down – from far away, we saw all this lightning, and it was all coming towards us, and we got stuck in the biggest storm ever on the fucking lake. And I thought I was going to die, and I was crying a whole lot, and then they had to get me all drunk and put me to sleep.

And I was asking my friend, “Dude, Felix, if lightning hits the lake, are we going to die?” And he was like, “I don’t really know.” And he was fucking with me, but I couldn’t tell, and I was freaking out.

Sure.

Yeah, they put me to sleep. [laughs] So those are the two times I will never forget.

Those are good.

Again, it’s, like, nature.

You’re very natural. That’s awesome.  But you think Baby Jesus gives you presents.

Yeah, this whole Santa thing, I don’t know. So what goes down in Switzerland is that on the sixth of December, Santa comes by, and then you hang out with Santa and this guy in a brown cape who has a whip, and he has this big bag, and then if you were a bad, bad kid, Santa threatens that he’s going to throw you in that bag, and that guy – his name is Samichlouse – is going to beat you up real good.

The guy with the whip’s name is Samichlouse?

Yeah.

Okay. Does he look like something?

He looks like a monk. He’s in a monk’s suit and he’s really mean-looking. And then Santa has this golden book, and then he reads out of it and tells you if you’re good or bad.

And if you’re good, Baby Jesus comes three days later?

No, no, no. If you’re good, you get a bunch of chocolate - you know, we’re Switzerland.

Oh, right. You guys like chocolate.

Yeah. So that’s a separate business, but then on the 24th, in the evening, little Baby Jesus comes by and drops off all the presents. Isn’t that awesome? Baby Jesus!

How does Baby Jesus show up?

You don’t see Him.

Does he have a sled?

No, and you don’t see Baby Jesus. The way it goes down is - it’s the 24th, it’s about six in the evening, and then you hear a bell ring, and then you run up. And then the parents are like, “Oh, my God. I think Baby Jesus just flew out that window!” And then the window’s open, and you’re like, “Where’s Baby Jesus?” And then you always miss Baby Jesus, and then there’s all the presents and you don’t really question.

[laughs] So Baby Jesus basically flies around like Superman giving good kids gifts.

No, everybody gets gifts.

Everybody. Whether you’re good or bad, everybody gets gifts. How nice.

Just like on Santa Day…

On Santa Day? Oh, on the Santa Day on the sixth.   

Yeah, you might get fucked up by Samichlouse. [Laughs]

Samichlouse fucks people up on Santa Day.

But Christmas is for everybody.

Wow, that’s works out pretty well.

That’s how it goes down in Switzerland.

Downloads

Fire_X.mov

Website

www.chrissy.ch

Photos

Ed Zipco

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