Culture & Press

Bangkok based Haute Manufacture design studio P. Tendercool created a unique chair for the 2014 edition of The Cabinets de Curiosites de Thomas Erber at Siwilai, Central Embassy Bangkok. Thomas Erber’s design brief required a great sense of Thainess. Stéphanie Grusenmeyer and Pieter Compernol, Belgian founders and design directors of P. Tendercool, quickly reflected about using tattoos as a design feature of their PT40 chair. Tattoos have been of a huge cultural importance in Thailand for centuries and often reflect animistic and religious motifs. Thai tattoo master Khun Vans tattoos a spider woman, designed by French Designer Jerome Barrier, inspired by IREZUMI, a 1966 film by director Yasuzo Masumura. This video shows Khun Vans attacking the chair as if it were a life subject. The tattooed chair fits wonderful in P. Tendercool philosophy of Cross Cultural Creations: designed by Belgians, hand-cast by an Italian Bronze master in Thailand, leather-stitched by Thai sellier, enriched by a Thai Tattooed drawing by a french artist who found inspiration in a Japanese cult film, for a design exposition curated by a Frenchman hosted in a Thai store.