Glossier : Most Tags Lead to WIPs (and sometimes heart-shaped hot tubs)

Follow @wip.ish on IG for accompanying images (Fig. 11 - 41).

I feel inclined to warn you : This is going to be a long post, but it should be interesting. 

As always, tune into @wip.ish on Instagram to see paired Figures 11 - 41 or to preview exactly what material I'll be taking you through today. 

I love Glossier. I use their Boy Brow in Brown and the Cloud Paint in Storm (though I combine it with Dawn). Even so, I’m not the kind of person who will tweet @glossier when I find my lost Birthday flavored Balm Dot Com in my mother’s makeup bag, nor do I find comfort in seeing someone walking down the infinite corridor carrying a pink bubble wrap bag - though I am entertained by the fans that do both - which I see via Glossier’s Instagram (Fig. 11). But honestly (!) I really like their IG. It’s weirdly personable. You often see admins responding directly to clients’ questions / praises, and they don’t skip the complaints, but it’s also pink - their IG, I mean. Not entirely, but if you scroll through their profile, there is a curated aura of pink-ness (which personally resonates with me because I definitely went through a pink phase in architecture school - as have many of us). But more importantly, I like Glossier’s IG because they use tags extensively. They tag their employees (Fig. 12). They tag their models (Fig. 13). They even tag screenshots of their favorite fan tweets (Fig. 14). But they also tag their designers (Fig. 15) - which tends to lead into many WIP rabbit holes, which is the topic of interest for this episode of WIP-ish :

When Glossier launched their first-and-only perfume, they created a pop-up store on the ground floor of their showroom on 123 Lafayette Street in New York to introduce the new fragrance. It was referred to as an “offline” experience, and unlike many of their previous retail spaces, it was not pink, it was crimson red (Fig. 16). Disclaimer : I never visited the space in person, yet it called my attention via many IG posts, not just because it was red, but because it was also velvet-y (Fig. 17). It’s sinuous walls curved in and out like a flowy curtain frozen in movement. The entirety of it reminded me of David Lynch’s “Red Room” in Twin Peaks, minus the black and white zig-zagged floor. Personally, I had never seen a space quite like this, though it did remind me of @indiamahdavi’s pink velvet ladyfinger chairs (Fig. 18) in the @sketchlondon tea room (who I also discovered via an IG tag (Fig. 19)). 

But, back to the red velvet : It severely piqued my interest. I wanted to know who made it and how they did it. The initial post that led me down this WIP journey was found on Glossier CEO, @emilyweiss’s IG. The post is a photograph of the press release announcing Glossier’s “Offline Experience.” While the release is cropped quite short, some names are legible. The same photograph can be found on Glossier’s IG, but the difference here is Emily tags two out-of-house designers : @maxzinser and @kate_mccollough (Fig. 20). I mention this because I don’t think I would have thought to search whether these designers had Instagrams had she not tagged them, but once looking through them, I realized they don’t use IG so dissimilarly than we do :

@maxzinser is more of a personal profile than a work one,  but if you scroll back far enough you will find red velvet walls (Fig. 21). Nothing new here, though. This photo can be found all over the internet and doesn’t reveal anything we don’t already know. @maxzinser’s tags tell a different story, though : @glossier is tagged along side @emilyweiss and other collaborators and in-house designers, but @thenewmotor proves the most interesting tag. 

@thenewmotor is a fabricator in Brooklyn and hints of Glossier You can be found on their profile. One image in particular (Fig. 22) is a stunning close up, of the store’s Lynch-like walls - hadn’t seen that one before, but again, not revealing much. Another post, however, reveals its backside, and in doing so, reveals its unique construction system (Fig. 23). From an all-too-quick glance, it looks like milled plywood in a waffle-like structure, but it’s hard to tell much more than that. These are the only images that appear on @thenewmotor’s IG, but they were enough for me to migrate off of Instagram and into their website, which contains even more images of their construction process. These images reveal enormous rolls of red velvet fabric that were then draped over and (I’m guessing) were glued to the  plywood structure. It’s kind of crazy because the fabric is clearly soft and pliable (as seen rolled up into an enormous cylinder), but once attached to rigid frame, it looks like a solid wall. I encourage you to look at the entire series of construction photographs at @thenewmotor’s website : www.thenewmotor.com. 

Maybe it’s just me, but I personally find this kind of thing so exciting. The use of materials here is inventive and inspiring. I would never have thought to use fabric in such a way - though it is admittedly a temporary pop-up shop, so I’m not sure how long such a construction system would hold. Even so, it’s enlightening, and I could easily see myself making a version of this at N51 - but those aren’t even close to my intentions. Instead, I just appreciate seeing how this space was made. Understanding its unique construction details makes me feel like I could make something similar. It’s weirdly empowering, and I think thats the feeling I chase whenever I go down these WIP rabbit holes. 

But, I also really appreciate knowing where a project begins conceptually. Original images of the Glossier You store can also be found on @kmznyc, which is a design collaborative between @maxzinser and @kate_mccollough, the two main designers initially tagged in @emilyweiss’s press release post. But Max Zinser has an additional professional account, @zinser.studio. A single image on it reveals an image we’ve seen before, but this time, it’s the caption that is most telling (Fig. 24): 

Inspired by a Guy Bourdin image from French Vogue (March, 1972) this mirrored respite in our @Glossier You concept shop was an elevated scene for taking a selfie. Project in collaboration with @kate_mccollough.

And as I’m looking at all of this material, another completely unrelated artist I began following via @glossier comes to mind : @junocalypso (Fig. 25). 

@junocalypso’s photograph series featuring heart-shaped hot tubs (Fig. 26) feels like a distant relative to Guy Bourdin’s photographs, and thus the Glossier You pop-up shop. An interview on @junocalypso’s website tells she was interested in “honeymoon hotels” and that most of her photographs take place in these kinds of hotels. While I was unfamiliar with the term, a comment by one of her followers (Fig. 27) further reveals the exact location of her photographs : the Poconos Cove Haven Resorts in Mt. Pocono Pennsylvania, aka @poconoromance (Fig. 28). The specific room with the soft pink heart-shaped hot tub, surrounded by angled mirrors is known as the “Harbour Tower” room is available to stay at for $198.60 a night. 

At this point, the first place my mind goes to is : Who invented the heart-shaped hot tub and where can I get one? Well, actually, Morris B. Wilkins, the original owner of Cove Haven Hotel in the Poconos, did. In fact, before the tubs were manufactured in fiberglass (by a now extinct company called Bath-Tec), the tubs were made by Wilkins himself - ah (!) a DIY man. An obscure article online says Wilkins “created his first tubs by pouring concrete into the shape of a heart, and then covering the tub with red tiles”(Fig. 29) [1]. It sounds simple enough (I think we could make one ourselves)… 

Wilkins didn’t stop there, though. He went on to design a champagne glass tub, which he then patented (Fig. 30). The original seven-foot-tall tub exists in the “Champagne Tower” room, which goes for $296.80 per night and features an additional heart-shaped pool (Fig. 31). I wasn’t able to find the champagne glass tub manufacturers, but I will sadly say that the company that went on to purchase Bath-Tec does not manufacture heart-shaped hot tubs - though I did end up finding a company (MTI Baths) that does - but they aren’t red or pink (Fig.32).

To clarify, I’m not attempting to create nor suggesting any links between any of the artists / designers I’ve mentioned. In other words, I don’t think @junocalypso was inspired by Guy Bourdain. Instead, I’m merely following a train of thought brought to you by IG tags because I’m personally fascinated by the research-like behavior IG can catalyze if we choose to engage with it in that manner. The work of both photographers are coincidentally both archived in my “Saved” tab on IG, and, as a result, both feel connected to (maybe only) me. What’s so interesting is that @glossier seems to tag many artists they are inspired by or end up working with (Fig. 33 - 34) and more often than not those peoples’ own IG’s provide a plethora of #WIPs - whether literal or subliminal (Fig. 35 - 36). This ability to see finished work in parallel with how it was made is all made possible via the IG tag, which makes it so relevant to us as designers. And while the saga from Glossier You to heart-shaped hot tubs is maybe interesting, it is also admittedly maybe not that helpful, but not all WIP rabbit holes are searched in vain. 

I once found an artist who worked for Glossier via @_sightunseen_, an online design magazine. @kim.markel was tagged in some furniture pieces she made for a show using recycled Glossier products. Her pieces looked like soft serve ice cream (Fig. 37), and I was of course intrigued. Her own profile revealed she was turning wet plaster on a lathe (though it is never visible) and her images alone led me into plaster research. In the end, my own dive into plaster techniques and fabrication lear me to discover methods like jollying, jiggering, and sledging, and paired with @kim.markel’s unique #WIPs (Fig. 38), allowed me to build my own plaster turning process in Zain’s class, 4.180 : Introduction to Robotic Fabrication (Fig. 39 - 40). Unfortunately, I ran out of time and never did end up pairing the plaster lathe with the Kuka robot. However, going through the process of stitching together someone’s unique WIP with my own research on traditional plaster techniques made me look at IG posts critically and I began using Instagram as a research device, rather than a purely social platform. 

As architecture students we learn and simultaneously invent our own processes. Our ability to design is twofold, then, when we are exposed to the process of others - after all, isn’t that what happens in architecture school? Many of us use IG to share our work, and it is also used by professional designers who sometimes share their process in doing so. I’ve learned that every part of a post can reveal something about how it was made, but the tag in particular feels hugely important, especially when it involves more than one person. When work isn’t (literally) made by the person originally posting it (@glossier in this case), a tagged collaborator - whether designer or fabricator - and their own relevant content on their profiles suddenly makes penetrable this illusion of completed work. That is, when the steps of how something is made are broken down, we can begin to understand it and conceptually insert ourselves into a piece of work via its process, which feels important especially as young designers who haven’t made much, if any, built work (!). Doing so might not have apparent or immediate results, but I’ve personally found myself beginning to design differently over time because of it. 

TLDR : Always tag your collaborators, and look for them when you’re scrolling through IG - you never know where they’ll take you. Even if there is no WIP trail for us to follow, a tagged collaborator begins to make a designer’s roles and abilities clear, rather than present the illusion of work having been magically brought into existence by one person. I loveee seeing a completed project on IG, but I much prefer to see its drawn out, complicated, and bumpy process of being made (and IG tags can really lead this journey or cut it short). But then again, maybe that’s just me. 

Follow @wip.ish on IG for accompanying images (Fig. 11 - 40) 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 popped up on my IG Stories : @simonebodmerturner has recently completed their partial showroom which they did it all by themselves, and they are not architects (Fig(s). 41). Their highlighted story on their profile - titled “Showroom” - shows how an odd and seemingly imprecise structure made out of plywood, studs, and steel mesh allowed them to create a beautiful hand sculpted space very much inspired by Valentine Schlegel and Savin Couëlle. I thought this plaster process was super interesting, especially as someone who’s been making plaster objects in my parents’ kitchen all summer. Plaster processes can be largely manually done, and I’ll probably be adopting a similar one for my own research this semester. 

[1] Mitchel, Nancy. “The Rise and Fall of the Heart-Shaped Hot Tub”. Apartment Therapy Website. 02.14.16.