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Based in Melbourne and led by co-creative directors Mel Hasic and Sarah Shinners, Without Studio is an emerging interior design practice known for creating spaces that are deeply personal and reflective.

In the lead-up to Melbourne Design Week, we chatted with Mel and Sarah about their response to the Dancer brief, their collaborative process, and the thinking behind their edition.

As admirers of your work, we were thrilled to invite you to be part of Dancer Editions. What appealed to you about the collaboration, and what aspects of the project resonated with you?

We are long time admirers of Coco Flip not only for the place they hold in the local design community, but for their ever open, collaborative and efficient support as a supplier/designer/fabricator.  We’ve been fortunate enough to specify and customise pieces with Coco Flip across multiple projects since starting our practice a few years ago. As a small studio we lean heavily on our collaborators and suppliers for their knowledge and expertise, with this team always championing the best in practice.  

The Dancer Collection in its original form is a range we have swooned over before being invited to collaborate for the Melbourne Design Week Dancer Editions. We really appreciated the collection's emphatic use of ceramic and two-tone stripes – a pair of elements which can be iterated infinitely and still feel fresh.

It’s humbling for us to be invited amongst the talent of Belinda, Coco Flip and all the practices and designers involved.

We loved seeing your interpretation take shape. How did you approach tackling this brief and reimagining the Dancer collection, balancing its existing visual language with your own creative voice? Did you have a clear direction from the beginning, or did the idea evolve along the way?

As Kate would know we had a few false starts with interpreting the brief. We came out a bit guns blazing by designing a few lighting pieces that we felt could fill a hole in the market that we would love to see realised, that spoke with the Dancer series. We kept the materiality and stripe pattern from the existing Dancer collection but were eager to include some soft furnishing elements, or trying to reinterpret the solid medium of ceramics through a softer lens via form or kinetic elements. We really had to pare back our thinking to truly honour the two iconic elements of the Dancer series – the cone form and the striped glaze. At that point, we pivoted from lighting to homewares.   

The shape of the glazing in Mirror 1 was adopted from the right-side leg (shape 10) of Der Abstrakte 3 (Abstract Dancer 3). This was a basic sketch in 1938 of what became the costume worn by Florian Sollfrank as The Abstract. We found the below note fitting to Mirror 2 with its cumbersome weight being what would help it turn and hold sturdily.

“Florian Sollfrank, now with the Bayerisches Staatsballett says, “The costume for the Abstract is really restrictive. A lot of movement really is not possible in it.” He remembers how they were all initially irritating but, once accepted, how they became helpful and guided him through the movement. Their weight can be used to advantage, with their mass being helpful in turns, he says.

This collaboration invited a shift in material thinking. How did you find the experience of designing in a different medium, specifically ceramics, compared to your usual practice?

We touched on this above, but bringing an element of ‘softness’ through either architectural or decorative finishes is always important to us when working with our clients. Though the mediums of ceramic and glazing are ‘hard’ finishes, having a reflective element allows surrounding elements or light to be multiplied or highlighted, meaning the occupant can experience surrounding soft elements in a different way. Our work can often be very layered so it was really nice to distill the noise of a full interior into designing a standalone homewares piece that will land in a space unknown to us. It definitely requires restraint, careful consideration to scale and revisions of refinement to get a stand alone product right as there are no layers to hide behind. 

We see this collection as a celebration of creative voices. What does your design represent for you and your practice? Was there a particular story, feeling or idea you set out to explore?

When sourcing, we find smaller decorative mirrors, especially freestanding vanity mirrors, to be few and far between. We thought it would be nice to create a series of 3 mirrors that speak to each other and play on the perspective of the reflection. Meaning some are there to mirror a person or face, and others are there to mirror an interior or vignette.

Thank you again for working with us on Dancer Editions. At Coco Flip, we're fascinated by the different ways designers approach process and creativity. Could you tell us a bit about how your studio practice informed your response to the brief? 

Similar to the above, we are aware of the roadblocks we hit when sourcing or designing for our projects. There are particular categories such as flush mount ceiling lights and small mirrors that are a rare gap in what is generally an over-saturated market, without being in an out-of-reach price point for many. Where a readily made product isn’t available, we’re always looking to work with local makers and artists to fill these gaps on projects. 

You're such a valued part of the local design community. What’s been inspiring you lately, any people, places or ideas influencing your practice? And looking ahead, are there any upcoming projects or directions you're excited to explore?

As most designers, we’re always looking forward to seeing our projects be realised. We’ve been working on our Wedding Cake project for over a year and are really excited by it. Especially by the music room in particular, which has a ballroom grandeur to it with a pressed tin ceiling – all lovingly restored by Lande Architects and BFC. It’ll be quite Parisian and eclectic and overall unlike any other room we’ve worked on before. In this space alone we have custom designed furniture pieces with Studio Blank, a custom chandelier by Ollie from Lost Profile Studio and some sculptural curtain holdbacks by Ned of V.Brokkr. It’s a labour of love!

We find a lot of inspiration in our peers and seeing small practices progress, grow and come into their own. It’s so lovely how everyone has their place in the industry and we love the collective mentality that there is room for everyone. In the same vein, we love to collaborate with some of the newer practices, artists and makers on something unique for our clients.  Collaboration is truly at the heart of what we do and what brings us joy in our work.

To list some specifics from a less local perspective are Forever Studio in the Netherlands doing some really fun work mostly with resin. They’re somehow minimalists and maximalists all at once and it’s very cool! We also always seem to be drawn to interiors coming out of Poland – particularly that of Paradowski Studio and more recently Moszczynska Studio.

Locally we really admire the work of Max Copalov (both product and interiors!) – all his creations have a certain subtle conviction that is equally grounding and exciting.  

In the future we’d love to push the materials we’ve learnt to work with, introduce some new ones and continue welcoming clients as good as the ones we’ve had to date. We are forever eager to get into the hospitality or hotel scene in case you know of anyone haha!

Learn more about Dancer Editions

View the Dancer Editions Auction

View the Dancer Collection 

Learn more about Without Studio

Product Images by Matthew McQuiggan

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