hen we asked Xavier Lust
to dream up a new take on the body brush
for this year’s Wallpaper* Handmade, we
expected something radical. But what the
Belgian designer came back with surpassed
all our expectations. Lust thought big.
‘At first I reflected on the functional,
practical aspects,’ says Lust. ‘Then my train
of thought released itself from these very
pragmatic concepts and my hand loosened
on the paper. I thought that a sculptural
shape, like a rock, covered with brush hairs
could be an interesting element: a mysterious
object on which we can lean or sit down,
and have a tactile experience.’
Brush design has changed very little in
the past few thousand years. Lust’s creation
took a closer look not only at aesthetics,but also at function, transforming the rather
basic activity of dry body brushing into an
overall physical experience in the form of an
oversized, conceptual bristled daybed.
To collaborate with Lust on this piece,
we approached Kent Brushes. Founded in
Hertfordshire, England, in 1777, it is the
world’s oldest brush manufacturer. Lust also
enlisted Belgian metal manufacturer Delhez,
which specialises in innovative production
techniques for steel and aluminium. Delhez
created the daybed’s linear base, which
consisted of an aluminium sheet, bent into a
sinuous form and perforated to accommodate
bristles. This was then shipped to Kent
Brushes to complete the work.
‘The plan was to completely cover the
daybed in tufts of natural boar bristle, usingthe perforated holes as the location point
for each individual bristle tuft,’ says Kent
Brushes’ creative director Ben Cosby, whose
family acquired the company in 1932. But
realising Lust’s design was not without
challenges. ‘The hole size and tuft dimensions
were five times what we are used to working
with on our hairbrushes, and we had to
develop new tools to pick the bristle and form
the tufts,’ continues Cosby. ‘The wire we use
to stitch bristle tufts into brushes also needed
to be supersized. This stiffer gauge wire
caused havoc with our nimble-fingered
craftspeople, who had to wear heavy leather
gloves just to be able to form and fit a tuft
without the wire cutting their hands.’
To speed things up towards the end of
production, Cosby and his team also had »∑ 117
Making Of...
W
DESIGNER XAVIER LUST
INSPECTS THE BASE,
SPECIALLY PERFORATED TO
ACCOMMODATE BRISTLES,
AT THE DELHEZ FACTORY
See the
finished exhibition
piece on page 180