Aesop Cambridge by JamesPlumb
For their new collaboration with Aesop on the brand’s Cambridge store, the English design duo JAMESPLUMB, who have already developed a reputation for using the most seemingly pedestrian materials to magical effect, used bulrush, the wild plant that typically grows on the banks of lakes and rivers. The plant grounds the two-room space both physically and metaphorically, an English answer to the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, which has perhaps unfairly hogged the spotlight when it comes to matters of finding beauty in earthiness and the aging of organic matter. To that end, JAMESPLUMB commissioned Felicity Irons – one of the last English rush weavers – to create extra long shelves using bulrush. The plant was also used to inlay the display cabinets and the sinks.