Modern World
THE DWELL 24
Here are the up-and-coming designers who need to be on your radar right now.
The New York design fair Wanted Design helped us create the list—we’re highlighting several studios that would have exhibited at its events.
THE DESIGN LIFE
We asked The Dwell 24 about how they work and what their lives look like. In these pages, we present the results.
MEXICO CITY / @PLATALEASTUDIO
Platalea Studio
Platalea Studio’s Lilia Corona and Rodrigo Lobato are lifelong students of the culture and crafts of Mexico. Their bold dinnerware, light fixtures, and furnishings take up traditional materials and techniques while addressing complex themes like colonialism, sexuality, and Mexican identity—“basically how Mexican society is involved with the outside, and how the outside is involved with Mexico,” Corona explains. The pair met while studying design at Universidad Iberoamericana and bonded over a shared love of film, their childhoods living all over Mexico, and a belief that design has the ability to give marginalized people a voice. After forming Platalea in 2017, they began partnering with artisans in Mexico City, transgender muxe people in Oaxaca, and students in Guatemala in a series of “mutual apprenticeships” that activate local economies and engage the studio in larger conversations. “We like to get involved with people who do their work with love,” Corona says. The result: modern objects that are charged with a greater resonance.
—Juan Sebastián Pinto
MEXICO CITY / @MOOL.MX
Mool
For Edgar Tapia and Emmanuel Aguilar, design is about more than aesthetics. Whether it’s the curve of a table or the color of a chair, the duo behind Mool believe objects have the power to evoke feelings. “The first thing we want clients to see is the emotion,” says Aguilar. Tapia and Aguilar met in college while studying furniture and product design. Today they operate Mool out of their Mexico City fabrication studio and storefront, where they craft accessories and furniture, including timber media consoles, velvet chairs, and metal side tables. The studio’s most recent collection, Pixán (Mayan for “soul”), focuses on powder-coated aluminum mirrors, vases, and other accessories. Each
