Julio’s Favorite Shapes : & How They Led Me to Marta’s Sewing Machine

Follow @wip.ish on IG for accompanying images (Fig. 119 - 167).

I quickly mentioned Canal Plastics in the last segment of WIP-ish. Canal Plastics is a plastics store on 345 Canal St in New York City. Basically, it’s our Altec Plastics (as MIT students). But Canal Plastics is bigger, offers custom fabrication, and it’s also one of Julio Torres, aka @spaceprincejulio’s favorite shops (Fig. 119-120) :

‘Whenever I don’t know what to do for Halloween, I come here,’ says Julio Torres, stepping through the door of Canal Plastics Center in New York City’s Chinatown. ‘I was Heart of the Ocean one time, from Titanic (Fig. 121), with some iridescent paper. I was a broken mirror another year,’ But the stores significance in his life is more than just about Halloween costumes : the comedian also mined the wonders of Canal Plastics when putting together his new HBO comedy special, My Favorite Shapes. [1]

If you haven’t watched My Favorite Shapes (Fig. 122), you should. It very vaguelyyy reminded me of a final review, but a highly curated and produced review that is veryyy funny. 

No, we don’t tell jokes in our pin-ups, but we do craft a careful narrative via drawings, projected images on screens, and scaled objects or models; and @spaceprincejulio’s jokes are all object oriented : from McDonald’s Kid’s Meals Toys including a glamorous chicken nugget known as Krishna (Fig. 123 - 124) to actual architectural dioramas / models (Fig. 125) made by Sophie Parker, artist and creative director of @wifenyc ( a plant based artworks studio that makes beautiful sculptures out of painted flora ) (Fig. 126)). Because @spaceprincejulio’s “shapes” are all relatively small (some are absolutely tiny), an additional screen shows a zoomed in version of @spaceprincejulio’s glittery hands holding his objects as he tells us jokes about them (Fig. 127). One of my favorite jokes is about an oval… an oval that wishes it were a circle (Fig. 128). Hilarious. 

But seriously, this truly is a design - oriented comedian whose design sensibilities even seems to stick out in his HBO Los Espooky’s character, Andrés (Fig. 129). Did I mention @spaceprincejulio is a writer for Saturday Night Live? You actually might be familiar with some of his sketches, which also feel quite design - inclined : Wells for (Sensitive) Boys (Fig. 130), features a faux Fisher Price well for boys to contemplate their somber reflections and heart’s questions. Papyrus (Fig. 131), stars Ryan Gosling as Steven anguishing over a Papyrus-like font being used for the Avatar franchise : 

“He just highlighted the word Avatar, clicked the drop down menu and and then he just randomly chose ‘Papyrus’ like a thoughtless child wandering by a garden yanking leaves along the way.”

Retrospectively, I suppose the general set up of My Favorite Shapes maybe shouldn’t have come as such a shock considering @spaceprincejulio’s past work, but it kind of did for me because 1) I had never heard of the glittery individual known as Julio Torres, and 2) No, I’m not well versed in comedy history, but in recent past / all of my life, I’ve never seen a comedian perform this way. By the way, I’ve yet failed to mention that all of Julio’s shapes come round the stage and towards his hands via a conveyor belt (!) (Fig. 132). I was actually so struck by this kinetic object - by how this conveyor belt facilitated and really enhanced his story-telling. In fact, I was so compelled by My Favorite Shapes that I decided to make a conveyor belt for myself in 4.140 : How to Make (Almost) Anything. 

I’ll admit I got maybe too hyped up and wanted to design an entire lecture series based off of a conveyor belt I had yet to make. Idk, I mean, imagine a line-up of architects delivering a My Favorite Shapes-style lecture where you had to base and relate all of your words to a small physical object? It’s honestly not so different from what we already do… Initially, I wanted to make a 10’ wide belt (Fig. 133) that allowed for a chair and backdrop of the user’s choice / design, but I ended up making more of a sectional test at 3’ wide (Fig. 134). I know, it’s pretty laughable, (I myself am lol-ing) but even that small mock up was a tonnn of work :

The conveyor belt was completely transparent, made of milled plexi (Fig. 135) (I milled (Fig. 136) vs laser cut for more precision) in the shape of a circle, which meant I didn’t have to worry about turning - the whole thing would be moving in the same direction the entire time, as opposed to most sushi conveyor belts. I added a small motor to a pair of clear skateboard wheels (Fig. 137) that put the whole thing in motion with a personally designed and milled circuit board (Fig. 138) that allowed you to move things forward or backward. The “ball bearings” (really just HDP spheres)  (Fig. 139) and all of the aluminum hardware (Fig. 140) were from McMaster Carr. I designed and made all aspects of the belt, which in the end, sadly had some technical difficulties. However, I was (surprisingly) lauded and encouraged to continue to try to make a beautiful transparent mechanical system at the open house - though not by Neil G. It’s cool! I learned a lot - mostly that I do not want to make all aspects of a mechanical and electronic object! 

Speaking of transparency - which is @spaceprincejulio’s favorite color (transparent) - the shoes he wears in his HBO special are *surprise* transparent, and are designed by @capitalklood, a shoe design studio based in El Salvador (Fig. 141). @spaceprincejulio’s sparkly outfit (Fig. 142) is designed by @murielparra, who is also the Los Espookys’ costume designer. But the set (Fig. 143) of My Favorite Shapes was designed by none other than @spaceprincejulio’s mother, Tita, and his sister, Marta, @multicolormarta (Fig. 144 - 145) - so was the fabulous baby blue / iridescent glowing chair (Fig. 146 - 148)!

There was a kind of shock and awe I had upon discovering what felt like a family design collaborative. I think this was probably in huge part due to my own upbringing - there are no designers / artists / architects in my immediate family tree, so to come across a family that can work together is actually quite moving (more on this later). But My Favorite Shapes is not an isolated instance of this family’s collaborative nature. A handful of Julio’s clothes are actually designed with / by @multicolormarta (Fig. 149). On at least two separate occasions (Fig. 150) @multicolormarta’s wearable creations were seen on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon. @spaceprincejulio even wore one of @multicolormarta’s designs, a glittery and wavy navy blue jacket, to the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards (Fig. 151 - 152). 

Perhaps what Marta is best known for is the small business she co-founded with her mother, Tita (Fig. 153) : Martania Bags. Before @martaniabags ever existed, Tita owned a small clothing boutique called Martania, where Tita, an architect (by the way), sold her own designs - this was all before @multicolormarta was even born. Tita chose to close the boutique while Julio and Marta were growing up (Fig. 154), but four years ago, during Marta’s last year of college, Tita proposed they begin making handbags together : It was then that @martaniabags was born. 

While Marta initially thought Tita would be hesitant to explore her own more unusual designs (like her mermaid bag (Fig. 155)), she ultimately discovered that they actually do not come from such distinct creative inspirations : 

…a few months ago, the two stumbled upon some photos (Fig. 156) from Tita’s days in the fashion world. Marta finally got a look at her mother’s work and she was amazed at what she saw: Tita’s designs were so similar to her own, without Marta ever having seen them.“If you looked at the pictures together, you’d immediately think I was basing my designs off of hers,” says Marta. “But it just happened.” During Tita’s years running Martania, her style was classic ‘80s: Think bright colors, geometric shapes, and lots of color-blocking. Marta was always naturally drawn to ‘80s and ‘90s fashions growing up. It was like she and her mother had lived with the same influences and tastes, but at different time periods. [2]

It’s true - the similarity between Tita’s previous work and Martania Bag’s is very legible. At the same time, it’s clear Marta and Tita’s work together is headed in exciting directions. 

Most recently, @martaniabags won the Independent Handbag Design Awards for the IDHA Animal Print category (Fig. 157) and their milk carton purse, known as the Martania Melocotón, (Fig. 158) was a finalist in the Overall Best Bag in Style and Design category.. In a video submitted to the IDHA Awards Marta says her passion for purses stems from the fact that a : “bag can be any shape as long as it holds your belongings”. And their bags really are so many things : they’re shells, cacti (Fig. 159), watermelons (Fig. 160), pizza slices - you name it. Some @martaniabag creations are even featured in HBO’s Los Espooky’s. (Fig. 161 - 163)

To be quite candid with you, my last segment was meant to include @multicolormarta and @martaniabags. It was definitely inspired by their work and their origins as architectural designers - however, my initial research on purses and their relevance to architecture via their construction sent me on a different path, as you might have read. What I find so interesting about designers like Marta and Tita is their ability to translate skills they learned via their profession into making something that is on the edge of the profession or maybe even slightly outside of it. There are other designers out there, specifically architects, who design wearable objects - like @welcomecompanion’s “sartorial objects” (Fig. 164) or @bureauspectacular’s snuggle (Fig. 165). However, * I don’t think * either of these are made by the designers themselves. It’s just not a model we see quite so often. 

You used to be able to purchase some @martaniabag’s products in person through @relationshipsnyc (Fig. 166 - 167), which was a coffee shop / designer boutique where a handful of artists could display and sell their products. Unfortunately, the store had to close due to a loss of business via COVID. However, today and always you can purchase @multicolomarta’s purses online on Etsy.

I recently reached out to Marta via DM to ask her more about her collaborative mother - daughter - brother process and we had a slow interview over email : 

MGC : Before we start, I wanted to ask : Is Tita short for anything? I have a friend named Cristina who goes by Titi, so I thought Tita might be short for something else. 

MT : Tita is short for Martita, that comes from Marta. My mom’s name is Marta, the same as mine, but it worked out that everyone calls her Tita so it gets less confusing. Also, my family usually calls me Ale, short for Alejandra, my middle name but everyone outside my family knows me as Marta. 

MGC : Ok, I thought so! That’s so nice… My brother Emilio is also named after my dad, who is named after my grandpa, and of course everyone in the family always confuses the three of them. 

Ok, so I read Etsy’s recent article on Martania Bags - congrats! - and learned a lot I didn’t know about you and your mom. I had no idea a kind of version (?) of Martania Bags existed before you were even born. If I understood correctly, your mother is an architect. Can you tell us why she opened her own clothing boutique, Martania? I ask mostly because I’m curious if she felt there was something lacking within her field that she felt she had to go outside of it - which I think many of us could relate to. 

MT : My mom says she was always sure she wanted to study architecture. She grew up seeing her grandfather build things and loved to help him and even designed a small house for herself and started building it before she started studying. She always liked fashion but saw it more as a hobby and didn’t pursue it fully until she graduated. It’s also important to mention that in El Salvador at that time architecture was the only “creative” career around, everyone that wanted to do something artistic studied architecture, there wasn’t a fine arts degree or any type of design so a lot of her generation pursued other creative mediums after graduating. Even though this was the case for many of her classmates, she did have that architecture passion. 

My mom always mentions that when she was going to complete a project for college, she was simultaneously designing and making her outfit for that day so she had a cool new outfit to present her architecture project. Her peers would always tell her to make clothes for them, so she started selling a few pieces and went for it full time when she graduated. She also felt what a lot of us feel, at least in El Salvador, that she couldn’t explore as much creatively with architecture as she could with clothes and fashion in general. I also feel the same way in that I love designing spaces, and I love what I studied, but here you can rarely actually build a really creative, outside the box project.

MGC : First of all, your Mom sounds… amazing. I’m just thinking of my own experience in architecture school, and I cannot imagine designing my work and then also designing my own clothes. I mean it sounds like it wasn’t “work” for her, it was something she loved and needed to do, but… wow. I guess it all just makes me wish we all made more time and space for the things we really need.

The problem you describe of actually getting things built I think is really universal. I think about this a lot, actually… I love architecture, but I end up designing so many things that will never get built, and I guess that is the truth of an architectural education. But even beginning to shift to considering making work outside of school, I’m like… How am I going to make anything? Haha, I’ve been having this existential crisis for two years now it feels like. For me there is this huge need of finding a smaller scale that still allows me to work in a similar way I do now… I can see how something like a purse would allow you to do that. And it’s not like a chair either, where I think furniture does begin to encapsulate skills we don’t necessarily have which then means we have to find someone else to make it for us and that is a whole other thing - it just doesn’t have the same immediacy as doing something yourself, which is how we work throughout school. 

I’ve also thought a lot about what I do and how that allows me or doesn’t allow me to relate to my family. For me, the kind of architectural education I find myself feels so deeply entrenched in ARCHITECTURE that I almost can’t share it with anybody who doesn’t do it - it’s just so abstract! In other words, my parents hardly ever “get” what I do. Reading about you sharing your work, doing it alongside your mom is really something to aspire to, at least in my eyes. I’m wondering what that is like. Can you tell us how you work together or what a typical back and forth between the two of you might be?

MT : Architecture actually helped me bond with my parents. My dad is a civil engineer and my mom, as you mentioned, studied architecture. Since they had that in common, it’s what they always talked about, and I guess I always found it interesting growing up, but I didn’t exactly “get it” or enjoy it as much. I wanted to go into fashion design, but there wasn’t a fashion degree in the country and I couldn’t afford to go anywhere else. The next best choice was to study interior architecture. At first, I was just going to study it for a couple of years but I ended up falling in love with it. It became my “second passion” as I like to call it, and also helped me to find something I could relate to with my parents. It made me have a special bond and appreciate their work. I could now talk to them about their work, and even if we didn’t have the same style I could now understand it and share aspects of it that we both like.  

Sometimes we don’t have the same style or agree on everything but the back and forth definitely helps because my mom has more experience in construction, so her feedback is always appreciated. I also feel like my personal process involves a lot of me working by myself while the idea is still evolving, but once I know what path I’m in, I like having someone I can bounce ideas off of and with my mom it does help. Sometimes, she might see something I’m not seeing and have a different perspective on what I’m thinking.  It does feel very abstract for me, even when designing bags, but there’s always this part of me that appreciates talking to someone with an architecture background. They just understand proportions, experiences that surround you, aesthetics, and how some things just work and others don’t. For me it’s something that’s hard to explain, it feels like speaking the same language. 

MGC : I really respect that you both seem to know yourselves well enough as designers to know how to work together. Your process allows for decisions to be made individually but then there are ones you make collectively, and there’s no anxiety about that - I guess because there is so much trust!

I was looking through Youtube videos on leather purse construction and it looks really complicated! There are special adhesives for the material, you have to pre-make holes you are stitching through, there are even hammers involved! Can you conceptually take us through what designing and making a purse from beginning to end might look like? I’m specifically curious where you source your materials, if you sew particular things by hand and others with a sewing machine, and what kinds of tools you use in general. Do you design completely by hand or do you find yourself in Rhino at all? Basically, what are the essentials when it comes to designing / making purses? 

MT : In Martania Bags we usually already have a certain style or train of thought even if we don’t do it on purpose. We have a certain way of designing and a process to it. Usually one of us starts with an idea - for example, a shape - and we work on it by ourselves. Once that idea is on its way we bounce ideas off each other or go to each other to figure out sizes, color palette, openings, or just to make function changes to figure out how the construction process will be. We sketch on paper or I sometimes do it in Illustrator, or even AutoCad and work our way from there. I use AutoCad mostly because I’m so used to it even though I don’t think you’d normally use it for bags and it helps me with scale and figuring out proportions. I don’t usually 3D model, I just make the sides and work from there. We then make a real size 2D version, then prototype in cardboard  - making the templates and then make the prototype with the real materials. So our essentials would be a sketchbook, cardboard, a computer, paper, and our material wheel where we keep a sample of all the materials we use for color reference. 

We work with plastic, leatherette, vegan/faux leather, and fabric for the lining. We also use sometimes a sponge-like material and cardboard depending on the structure needed for our bag. One thing about our bags is that they’re almost all very firm, sturdy, and stand up by themselves - more like bags designed in the 80’s. We adapted this construction process from the beginning on some bags and then ended up designing most of them this way because we loved the shape and function of it. It also allowed us to be more graphic and bold in our designs. All the pieces are cut with a blade/cutter for leather and then are sown with a machine, there’s also a lot of glue involved as I mentioned with the structure aspect of the bag. 

MGC : How do you see your collaboration with your mom in Martania Bags vs your collaborations with your brother, Julio? Do you see them separately or are they kind of the same? From an outside looking in, I associate your work with Julio with clothing and set design - not so much your purses. He’s worn a lot of things you’ve made on TV and the set of My Favorite Shapes was hugely designed by you, but also the chair! What has been your absolute favorite thing you’ve designed alongside your family? 

MT : With Martania Bags since we started we’ve been focusing on just designing bags and looking at all the different options and possibilities behind making a bag. We’re still exploring and I feel we still have a lot more to make in bags. Martania Bags is fun, colorful, but we also let ourselves be a little free with what we design. We both pitch different ideas to each other and find ways to make them work. 

With my brother we usually design very specific things. My brother usually commissions something from us and he knows what he wants or at least what it is. Sometimes he brings a material to us and says he wants a sweater, but we decide how it will be made, what it will be added to it. Other times he has a shape idea and we build from that. Sometimes it’s just a style, sometimes it’s even more free and he just says he wants an article of clothing, but we already know his style and what he likes. There’s also a lot of feedback in the process, sometimes we send him quick sketches and he says if he likes it, if we’re in the right direction, or he can send a sketch back of an idea he has. It definitely depends on what we’re making, but he’s always very present in the collaboration and there are at times very specific items of clothing or materials and we add our twist or design input. 

For My Favorite Shapes there was definitely a lot of back and forth involved, but from the start we were on the same page style-wise, my brother and I both love random “shapes” in architecture : squiggles, arches, etc, and the Shapes set was basically our dream come true. 

My favorite thing we’ve designed is probably the chair.  The first sketch was actually my mom’s, and she based it off the squiggle I had on the top corner of the set. We built up from that idea, and my brother loved the direction it was heading in. I picked the color palette and seat material and we built it here, in El Salvador. It was also the final thing we designed for Shapes - the rest was already finished by Michael Krantz, the production designer. The chair was the only part we were involved in the actual construction process of in our own country, so it definitely has some emotional value attached to it. There was also a very special moment when I found those clear wheels at a hardware store and knew my brother would love them, so it all came together perfectly. Seeing it in the final set just felt like it was the perfect final touch. 

MGC : You already work across so many mediums, but are there any you haven’t tried but at currently eyeing?  

MT : I’d definitely like to explore more with designing clothes, I’ve mostly designed for myself but I feel I could learn more about the construction process to be able to explore more and even add some products to our line. I also want to make more furniture. I don’t get to do it as often as I can, but it’s definitely one of my favorite parts of product design - I think there are so many possibilities and I think I have the potential to make something really cool. 

MGC : What do you see for your and your family’s creative future? What about your family collaborations have made you happiest and most fulfilled as a designer, but also just as a person? 

MT : This year we started to collaborate in a furniture / home goods line all under the Space Prince style and the Martania style. It’s currently paused with everything going on, but I’m very excited about that project. My family collaborations make me feel closer to them. It gives us a special bond, even when we can’t talk as often or be near each other, we’re always sending each other cool references, things we’re working on and it’s a way we stay connected. For us, design is a lifestyle, so it makes sense that it’s also a part of our connection. Design for me makes me feel fulfilled, as corny as it sounds, I feel most like myself when I’m designing and when I’m in that moment where I have a creative breakthrough. 

I don’t know many people who associate their profession to their family, but this is something I have found myself thinking about intensely - especially after having been home for six months. Questions regarding how our families fit into our careers might not take priority as we consider our professional futures, but.. Why can’t they? Marta’s case is what sound like an especially unique one : Her immediate family are all in some way tied to design - or as she says : They all speak the same language. So what do you do if your family doesn’t speak design? How do you communicate to a non-architectural audience? Really think about it. I’ve currently been thinking about how the deeper I find myself in higher education, the farther I feel from my origins… Do you feel the same?

I hope to be able to soon share the work I am doing in my SMArchS thesis in attempting to include my family in on the conversation, but one of the future segments will also address these issues in the form of an accessible architecture podcast (that means NO jargon, NO precedents, just stories - and we are practically experts at constructing those).

Follow @wip.ish on IG for accompanying images (Fig. 119 - 167) and an eclectic source of unrelated WIPs. On that note, I also want to know what, where, and how you make! DM or email me at wip.ishhh@gmail.com with unsolicited WIP images or #wip posts with an optional caption and IG handle to be featured on the WIP-ish IG : 

This week’s featured WIP is Seungjin Yang. @seungjin_yang is a furniture designer whose furniture looks like it was made by the clown your mom hired for your birthday party (Fig. 168). @seungjin_yang shares his process (Fig. 169 - 170) (which very much does include shapeable balloons) throughout his IG. Specifically, he has a really great process video on his website showing how he connects these resin balloons to one another with  the help of zip ties and wooden jigs while they dry (Fig. 171). I really love @seungjin_yang’s work because he’s made up a unique process that allows him to make his work beginning to end… 

[1] Marina, Brooke, “How Julio Found His Favorite Shapes”. W Magazine Website. 08.22.20.

[2] Duncan, Tess, “Creative Origins :  Martania Bags.” Etsy. 09.12.20.