Girls who like rebooting like beautying: AREA SS2020’s campaign

Dear Shaded Viewers & Diane,

Surely curating fascinating interiors is in AREA’s wheelhouse, their skill made obvious by the set design for their Spring-Summer 2020 campaign for marketing proposals, assembled in no time at all.

The residence where it was shot is an oasis located just outside of London, its serene opulence only matched by the work designed by the NYC-based creative duo Beckett Fogg and Piotrek Panszcyk.

The campaign combines a series of white-framed color prints with black & white photographs in a harmonious and magnetic assemblage of landscape within walls– a home safe home where beauty prevails.

I recall the inundation I felt when the goddess brought me Weeping Willow by Claude Monet (1918), my eyes struck by this particular tree portrayed in the painting. The tree had pride in place on the bank of Monet’s water garden. Though perhaps unrelated, these AREA photos seem to have been gradually built as the composition around them was created, like painting while leaving bare canvas still visible.

“With so much time being spent at home, we’ve seen several of our clients dressing up in AREA for instagram, their zoom meetings, to walk their dogs, go grocery shopping, etc. The fantasy will always live on because it is something that is manifested from within us.”

– Beckett & Piotrek

Sneaking into my thoughts and submerging into my bloodstream are these images, so deep and close that their reality feels encapsulating. There’s Ning and Alexis, girls that loiter behind their glasses. Now I suddenly feel unlucky for I have failed to understand the wild jokes they are cracking behind their shielded frames. Then I turn in my own misfortune to two adorable pie slices, their crystal fringed bijouterie like garments from the naked weeping willow standing just across the pond.

Was this monumental tree the axis mundi for AREA’s location scout? Who could resist portraying such nobility, the top of the plant kingdom native to dry areas where reckless sensuality is always thirsty? Whether Ning and Alexis ended their shoot with table flipping or weeping willow pulling during lockdown is none of our business. This indoor-outdoor narrative ending will remain forever secret. The tree, the house, and the models themselves belong to what we call “modern gems” and all under one nameplate: AREA.

Photos © Charlotte Wales

Best,

Marcelo Horacio Maquieira Piriz.

OFICINA GABARDINE (OG)

Designer Consultancy Retail Development Media Relations Buying Adviser