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04.07.25 | A LITTLE ORIGIN STORY



At the end 2022, I bought a one-way ticket to Portugal after losing both my job and relationship in the span of a week. Both started around the same time and lasted about 7 months. The whole thing was sort of like ordering a pair of Prada boots off Moda Operandi but they’re a half a size too small and feel like you’re walking around with a pebble shoved up near your toes. Still, you wear them anyways because 1) you look chic af and everyone is complimenting you 2) they are everything you thought you wanted and 3) they were final sale so you literally can’t return them. 

The idea for what is now Objective was born out of this weird free fall-y time, in an apartment on Rua Dos Anjos around the corner from Garcé Dimofski's first Portuguese project and gallery space, and a little restaurant called Trinca where I walked to get fish tacos when the apartment felt too small. It fully crystallized on a quick trip to Porto, during which a walk down a little side street led me to a small brush atelier called Escovaria De Belomonte

It's worth stopping here to mention that I use a crumb brush to clean my kitchen counters. I use it religiously and I am lost when I'm in someone else's kitchen and they don't have one. I have no idea why they're not a thing. At a certain point the crumb brush became my personality enough that I decided I wanted to make one. But the issue became how, and who even does this? (Let's be real—there's probably some cool modern homesteader/influencer in Western Mass who makes brushes, but we both know no one in the five boroughs is *really* doing this).


   
Escova de bolso multiusos (Multipurpose pocket brush), 8 EUR; Esfregão coco (Coconut fiber mop), 6 EUR; via Escovaria De Belomonte.


Which brings us back to Porto and this little brush atelier and a woman behind the counter named Fatima, who responded "tomorrow?" when I said rhetorically "I wish I could learn" through Google Translate. And so that's how it happened: the next day I learned how to make a horse hair brush from Fatima in this tiny Portuguese shop that has been passed down through three generations, with neither of us speaking the same language. 

This niche thing I had tucked away in the back of my brain and quietly thought about for years unfolded in a way that was so unexpected and kismet, I never would have been able to imagine it. No one else does it like this anymore and 1) that's what makes it so special, but 2) they should. There's beauty in simplicity, in specificity, and in taking your time. We no longer celebrate those things.

So much of traditional interiors centers on big picture and perfection in a way that is atypical of real life. We design and buy everything for our living room at once, neglecting to think about what plates we want to see stacked and haphazard across our dining table after breakfast, or the way a lamp with a pull chain will feel in our hand when we tug to turn it on.


     

The objects we choose to use and collect and surround ourselves with hold great importance individually and when we think of them that way, they come together to create a whole that's much greater and more real than anything instantaneous ever could be. I wanted to create an offering where people who share the same ethos could get help finding the perfect thing; a different way of thinking and designing that could expand and adapt to projects across various forms: a café, objects for a hotel lobby, a gallery installation, editorial, or one-on-one consultation.

Last year, Objective took form as a container for that offering and a place to write about things like a Roger Fatus floor lamp or the wallpaper in the background of a giallo absolutely no one else has seen. If you're still thinking about Peter Fischli Eric Weiss' show at Matthew Marks last year, use a micro dustpan and brush post-English muffin, or take the long way because it's more aesthetically pleasing, you're probably exactly who this is for.



I’m very happy to say that Objective is now an email newsletter. Updates will be sent out in tandem with new posts. Sign up to follow along in the link at the bottom of the page.
 
If you are looking for assistance finding your own perfect thing, I look forward to connecting with you through a consultation or brainstorming a larger project.  




Furniture For Thought

I’ve texted no less than three people to tell them that if I had space, I would immediately buy myself Alex Eagle’s daybed exactly how it comes, in lemon curd linen. Also, a ceramic chair covered in fish that I found a few weeks ago and have a lot of feelings about. It’d be a really good plot twist in someone’s foyer. (and obviously, brushes from Escovaria De Belomonte.)


Eagle & Hodges Daybed 
£5,850 | via Alex Eagle
Chinese Ceramic Chair w/ Fish
$1,600 | via Etsy

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