RAW EDGES
The young Israeli designers Yael Mer and Shay Alklalay are the faces of Raw-Edges. After years of living together they launched their own studio, in which they adopt unfamiliar techniques to design familiar products, Mer is mainly interested in the transformation of two dimensional sheets into elegant functional furniture, whereas Alkalay is fascinated by how objects move, function and react.
Both born in Tel Aviv, they graduated Bezalel Art and Design Academy in Jerusalem, and then moved to Great Britain. They attended Ron Arad’s classes at the Royal College of Art and defended their master’s thesis in 2006. After that they won British Council Talented Prize in Milan & Paul Smith in Tokyo. Collections at London Design Museum feature their works, and Established & Sons and Arco are the first companies to offer Mer and Alkalay’s products. Their works are exhibited at Johnson Trading in New York, FAT Galerie in Paris, and Scope Art Fair, Basel.
LEADING TENET
Our designs have to be new and different from something that has been done before. If it looks familiar, we lose the interest to keep working on.
THE SATISFACTION
To come up with new idea, something that will present new way of using an object, something that would inspire other people in their everyday life.
TRENDS
For us Trends are group of ideas that has similarities that can be applied to many people and that existing at around the same time. As we always try to make something new, we hope not to be part of a “trend”.
Also, similar to fashion, in trend there is sort of meaning of limitation in time… something that is trend today, would probably be not good for tomorrow. We hope to design objects that stand by itself.
