Squint: A Rant

Avril from Damned Good Design and I have been filing our nails and painting them Jungle Red over the last few days. The subject: The Squint Furniture Collection. The question: What the hell is going on here? The answer: A mystifying and egregious combination of bad taste, bad design, shoddy craftsmanship, combined with an equal dose of something I can only think of as Pulling The Wool Over One’s Eyes-ism.

Certainly patchwork has been done many times. And, there’s tons of Ugly out there. So what has our dander up? Three things.

First, these pieces look so slipshod. The seams don’t match, the patchwork is horrible, there’s no sense of composition or proportion, and the fabric on the legs looks like someone slathered some Elmer’s on it and plopped it into place. It’s just lazy.

Second, Avril suspects the fabrics are comprised of showroom fabric samples. Showrooms lend these to designers who are supposed to return them – not use them for crafts.¬† But Ms. Squint uses a lot of the same patterns. So, they could be discontinued samples. Showrooms either throw these away or give them away to art schools. Either way, they’re free.

Which beings me to issue number three.

The retail price for these starts at $7,300, “depending on the price of the fabric.” WHAT?!?

Hello? Did someone miss their Composition Class at Art School?

Take it away Avril:
Great, so someone can upholster a sofa. Me too. But assuming these are samples, and I can’t help it- the size looks JUST like a sample, which are not quite big enough to make into pillows and are bigger than fat quarters so quilting is not an option. This means that they’re cobbled together, from whatever is lying around. And while I’m all for kudos on recycling the samples, is it worth that much? And why is this being touted everywhere as some kind of laudable achievement when the results are… well, iffy at best.

I am all about recycling furniture, too. (I’ve been working on that little IKEA soon-to-be-bar cabinet for months (almost done… still putting the finish on). But I don’t think this is recycled furniture. This looks like the cheap, generic, “traditional” furniture you can get from a catalog that comes in a plain muslin and you take it somewhere and supply the COM [customers own fabric].

Grrrr…

Don't let your kids get too close to the craft scissors.

Back to me

I believe in a job well done and a price that’s in line with the quality of that work. Avril and I can’t understand why anyone would think these sofas look good at any price – even if they were being given away.

Is it just us? What do you think?

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