TOOGOOD AT TIINA THE STORE ALLOTMENT
Toogood returns to Tiina the Store with a new installation ‘Allotment’.
Toogood’s Summer 2019 collection was inspired by ‘Grow your Own’; the work of growing fruit, flowers and vegetables undertaken in gardens and community allotments all over Britain.
This installation echoes the hand-made structures created to support plants and vegetables as they grow and make-shift sheds and shelters found in these industrious plots. A large framework of wooden poles are lashed together with rope to create an abstract freestanding structure. A pathway takes the visitor thought the structure upon which are draped blue hand-painted banners with motifs of vegetables and wilted flowers along with a series of exclusive hand-painted dresses and over-sized T-shirts.
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The rich loam, the life-giving splash of water, the fiery warmth of the sun: these elements we combine on our allotted span of earth to bring forth fresh produce. We dig for victory! We hoe for productivity! On a small stretch of land meted out by the borough, we till the soil and plant the seeds of revolution. Let the supply chains shatter, for our inspiration is self- sufficient.
Grow your own way – that is the principle we live by, the creed in our very marrow. In rugged and nubbled linen weaves, we nurture and propagate, creating new crops season upon season. Like market gardeners, we sprinkle water on our seedlings to cultivate new fruits: cool-washed hessian, cold-dyed organza, and liquid patterns activated by heat. We bed down the leaves of appliqué, layer by layer. Our sleeves are grown on, organic; our garments bound together with cords and tapes like stalks tethered to a beanpole.
The time is ripe for self-reliance – and its uniform is modern workwear, durable and weathered like a creosote fence. For whatever challenges we may face, there is some corner of a municipal field that is forever.
TOOGOOD AT TIINA THE STORE
Faye Toogood will be attending Tiina the Store July 5-6 2019.
This is Faye’s first visit to Tiina the Store since the launch of the store’s large new retail space for which Faye designed the furniture and display elements.
Drawing on owner Tiina Laakkonen’s penchant for collecting, the reimagined space is a curatorial cabinet of curiosities infused with postindustrial touches. Reflecting Laakkonen’s Nordic roots, the pared-back aesthetic is sculptural and geometric, but with touches of domesticity that alludes to the store’s origins as a family home. The centre piece cash desk, a 4m-long custom-built table in natural oiled ashwood with a frontage of soft grey felt, has a tabletop finished with three shades of poured car paint, offering a deconstructed take on the traditional idea of a marble-topped shop counter. Clothes are stored in freestanding cabinets constructed from powder-coated steel mesh, with hanging rails or wooden shelves, while console vitrines made with low-iron, non-reflective glass are used to display jewelry. The same range of innovative materials – industrial mesh, felt, ash and poured paint – are also deployed in a series of stepped geometric units that can be easily and speedily rearranged, creating a malleable and continually evolving space.