Photography: Isabel + Helen, Villa Eugénie, Francisco IbañezWhat followed was a series of kinetic
projects with increasingly sophisticated and
anthropomorphic designs. ‘It’s about giving
things new life and new functions,’ says
Chesner, passing over a mug of coffee that
reads ‘Brain Dump’ on the front, a leftover
slogan from the duo’s graphic takeover of
The Conran Shop’s Chelsea outpost in 2016.
The pair’s work is deft, reductive and sexy.
It’s also funny, but more playful slapstick
than laugh out loud. They draw on John
Wood and Paul Harrison’s dead-pan double
act, Julio Le Parc’s woozy op art, David
Shrigley’s satirical straight-talk and, perhaps
most of all, Alexander Calder’s clean,
geometric lines.
It takes a fair bit of sketching out ideas
and tinkering with materials before the goods
are delivered. ‘Every project is so different,
you can become a master at something that
you’ll never have to use again,’ says Chesner.
They spin lo-fi materials into hi-fi effects:
scraps of wood or foam become sumptuous
and edible looking; basic industrial motors
and familiar objects are modified to perform
seemingly impossible physics. ‘We’re trying
to recreate a feeling of nostalgia.’
With the studio’s versatile approach and
razor-sharp brand perception, Isabel + Helen
is in high demand in the fashion sphere.
‘We’ve been lucky with a lot of our clients.
They trust us and come to us for a reason,
because they like our aesthetic,’ says Gibson.
‘You can delve deep into whatever has
influenced their collection, which gives you a
good pool of reference. Otherwise you’re a bit
“pie in the sky”,’ says Chesner.
A year into their collaboration, they
landed their first big commercial job, turning
three windows of Selfridges into a science
museum. They produced and installed the
whole project by themselves. ‘It was a slog;
a lot of sleepless nights,’ says Chesner. ‘But
I think that project really defined us,’ Gibson
adds. Millions and Billions Windows involved,
among other features, a supermassive black‘Every project is so different, you can become a master
at something that you’ll never have to use again’
SETS THAT HAVE PUT
ISABEL + HELEN CENTRE STAGE
Craig Green x Moncler Genius, A/W18Hermès windows campaign, S/S19Isabel + Helen hit London Fashion Week with two
7m-tall inflatable towers – a perfect match for
Green’s puffed-up looks. ‘People were walking
around thinking, “What the hell is going on?”
It was almost like theatre,’ says ChesnerInstalled across all of Hermès’ UK stores,
these calming scenes used hypnotic movements
set against a soft fabric landscape to reference
the infinite cycles of the sun and the moon,
creating lulling and serene environmentsConstructivist Playground, V&A, 2014
This project for V&A Friday Late involved
a functional seesaw, swing set and staircase
rendered in crisp shapes, turning the
Constructivist movement’s bold aesthetics
into something jovial and interactivehole swirling with a continuous and hypnotic
stream of marbles. ‘We made sure the
mechanisms were hidden completely – like
it was all magic,’ explains Chesner.
Their work on fashion shows has also
caused a stir. A wall of blow-up breasts behind
the catwalk of Katie Eary’s A/W17 collection
evoked the seedy backstreets of 1970s Soho,
while the inflatable towers for Craig Green’s
A/W18 capsule collection for Moncler Genius
began in their studio as a series of experiments
with bin bags and fans, and resulted in two
colossal structures that looked somewhere
between industrial air dancers and a stack
of space-age rubber dinghies.
The duo’s work looks just as good on film,
a medium they are increasingly weaving
into their practice. An ident for ITV – aired
earlier this year – involved a mass of ping-
pong balls gyrating in rhythmic unison like
Newton’s cradle over a jet-black backdrop.
The concept referenced the ever-changing
patterns of pixels but was all executed in
analogue materials. ‘You can get away with
so much on camera,’ says Gibson.
Chesner picks up a wooden frame,
stretched with a bobbled sheet of orange
rubber in lieu of a canvas. It wobbles like
rippling jelly and it takes every shred of
willpower not to reach out and poke it.
This is a prop used in their latest project,
a series of abstracted short films for shoe
brand Harrys of London. ‘We’ve been able
to experiment and play with materials to
create digitally rendered but physical films,’
Gibson explains. The brief is wide open,
but the pair are going microscopic, zooming
in on the brand’s defining characteristic, its
bobbled Technogel innersoles.
There’s no rest for the gifted. London
Fashion Week beckons and if Isabel + Helen’s
previous feats are anything to go by, we are
in for a treat, and hopefully a trick or two.
Just don’t ask them how it all works – you will
spoil the fun. ∂
isabelandhelen.com∑
Design
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