When Denise Martinez and Jorge Arturo Ibarra were introduced to each other by their families some years ago, they realized how much they have in common, from their Mexican heritage to their interest in a certain aesthetic and interior design. Martinez’s father was an engineer; “I grew up in a household full of blueprints,” she says. Ibarra comes from a culinary family, where he learned blueprinting of a different kind, recipes. He got the architecture bug from his grandfather, who designed his own house, down to the furniture, and each of his restaurants. He decided to study architecture, though he eventually settled on furniture design.
The pair kept in touch, even though they lived on the opposite coasts of the United States, Martinez in San Diego and Ibarra in New York. Ibarra was the creative director for Luteca, a furniture brand that bills itself as “contemporary design inspired by Mexican heritage.” And Mexico has no shortage of aesthetic influences on Martinez and Ibarra, from traditional to modern, like the architecture of Luis Barragan. But in their minds that influence does not have to be literal. While they look to their mother country, they also love Donald Judd and Rick Owens (whose late mother was Mexican and who also went back to his Mexican roots in one of his recent collections).
And so, during the pandemic, like many others, Martinez and Ibarra decided to strike out on their own, forming Deceres Studio in 2021 and moving their operations to Los Angeles. The design of their furniture mixes the textures from Mexico’s churches and their own goth-inflected sensibilities. Indeed, there is something ceremonial and austere to the work that is texturally rich, while retaining a modernism of clean angles.
All of Deceres’s products are made in Mexico City by local artisans, which allows the designers to reconnect with their roots, but also to get the final results just right. Because of lack of ornamentation in their work, there is nowhere to hide, and the process becomes about materials and texture. “The richness of our textures comes from the craftsmanship, from attention to detail in how the wood is treated, brushed, and stained,” says Ibarra. “We work for months just to develop the right shade of black or brown.” This thorough attention to detail is evident in the products like an aluminum coffee table, whose texture is achieved entirely by hand, or in brushed solid white oak dining tables that somehow seem to both shimmer and swallow light.
Photos courtesy of the brand
