Every Fabric Tells a Story in Bokja’s Technicolour World

Bokja – the cult design studio run by Lebanese designers, Hoda Baroudi and Maria Hibri – staged an eye-catching project at Spazio Rossana Orlandi which literally turned sofas and chairs into conversation pieces. And everyone in Milan was talking about them.

Furniture was presented at Bokja’s “Conversations” project not as a finished product, nor an end in itself, but as a collection of stories pieced together as a vibrant collage of contemporary and vintage fabrics. The concept is an intriguing one, suggesting that its furniture is an amalgam of stories and narratives that continue to have a life beyond the design which physically brings them together at a particular moment in time.

Dissected layers of fabric from two sofas, hung like an art installation, were linked to descriptions of their places of origin, original context and personal story. This autopsy-style furniture deconstruction successfully threw a new slant on recycling, vintage furniture construction and textile history.

A series of “Schizophrenic Chairs”, re-upholstered in mismatched fabrics, also intrigued me while a crazy, textile-clad car (originally created for the launch of Bokja’s Beirut store) was parked outside and will eventually be auctioned to benefit Haitian children.