THE BEAUTIFUL CHAOS = of mixing materials that shouldn't work but do. Rough concrete next to polished marble. Oxidized copper with pristine glass. The kind of combinations that make Instagram stylists break out in hives but make actual rooms feel like they've been inhabited by interesting people.

Now to drop a few names…

JOSÉ ZANINE CALDAS = knew this. His "protest furniture" carved from single logs? Wood that had lived as trees before becoming chairs. Materials with memory, with purpose, with the kind of environmental consciousness that makes your Ikea flatpack weep.

FRANCOIS HALARD = gets it. His “images” and spaces feel like they've been accumulating patina for centuries (they usually have), importantly; never assembled last Tuesday by a team with mood boards. 

The kind of spaces that feel discovered rather than designed.

THAT RANDOM PALAZZO = in Venice with the chipped frescoes and the marble worn smooth by centuries of feet? That's what we're after. Not the sanitized, "timeless" neutrality of every f*cking hotel lobby.

Because here's what they don't tell you: PERFECTION IS COMFORTABLE, AT BEST. 

Yes, an Eames chair is (classically) pretty in its new/“perfect” state but the wear on that leather after 20 years is simply hotter. The plaster that's cracked just so. The wood that's been bleached by decades of sunlight. The stone that's been carved by weather and time and the beautiful, chaotic process of existing.

OUR PURSUIT = isn't to create rooms that look good in photographs. It's to show spaces that feel like we discovered someone lives in there. Pieces with weight,  creators and collectors with history, with the kind of imperfect shape that comes from life.

GIVE US MATERIALS THAT MATTER.

—A Garder Manifesto