Design Daily: BohoPOP Collection From New DGoods Lifestyle Brand
Author:Sarah Virginia WhiteChanneling the great American road trip, Los Angeles-based designer Kim Hayden Holt has launched a new product line that will send your wanderlust into overdrive. One of the best things about the BohoPOP collection—other than the bold graphics, bright colors and incredible versatility—is that Holt uses local artists and fabricators to make the entire line. Read on for our Q&A with DGoods co-founder and creative director Kim Hayden Holt, below, and check out our favorites from the fabulous new line, which launched online on January 31.
Check out a full gallery of new BohoPOP products >>
What led to the creation of this line?
My background is in graphic design and photography, and I used to work with rockers, pop stars and rappers for all the record labels. I would do set design for the photo shoots, and that’s where I got the interior design bug. After completing a program at UCLA, I went to work at the only place I wanted to work in LA—Kelly Wearstler—where I did product and textile design. She’s very graphics–oriented, which is kinda my language. I worked there for three years, and had also been working with Reto Eberle (founder of design fabrication firm dTank on my own line of modernist tiles. We both loved the transformative experience of boutique hotels, and DGoods came from trying to capture that refreshed feeling they can give you.
What is BohoPOP?
This collection centers on the great American Southwestern road trip. We pulled ideas from events like Burning Man and the Coachella Valley music festival—that whole era. It has a desert vibe, and mixes old-school materials with new applications (check out the poufs with Navaho blankets, silver conchos and lambskin trim). But what I love is that you can also use them successfully in a contemporary home. I’m a modernist, that’s really my style, so I think of things in terms of shape and geometry.
Did you design with a type of person in mind?
Our customers fit into two categories. First, there are the seekers; that is, people who want to create an experience of discovering a space, or of transporting themselves to a travel destination. Second, there are the people who want to bring something back from their trip. BohoPOP in particular is very multicultural. It’s Americana, but there’s also the Tenchi cube vase, inspired by a trip to Japan, which can be used as a bud vase or to hold chopsticks.
What challenges did you face when designing your products?
One was matching appropriate materials to our custom designs. We have to find special inks to create our graphic textiles, which are all designed in-house. Also, our guiding mantra is that we use local fabricators, which can be challenging. We prefer the one-on-one contact and investment in our own community, but working with small shops often means that they have to adapt their normal processes. At one tiny upholstery shop in downtown LA, our pouf went through a million prototyping phases, because they had previously worked with one or two fabrics per project, and we were asking them to use eight. Our fabricators grow as we grow.
How will the DGoods style evolve?
As we move on, we’ll be adapting our aesthetic dramatically. We’re launching a new collection once per year, and the next one is much more geometric—more Bauhaus-y. We’re often looking to fashion as a guide, and we’re seeing such a push towards op-art and graphics, stripes, etc.
Check out the full gallery of BohoPOP items here, and stay tuned—Holt says plans are in the works for a possible San Francisco pop-up shop in the near future.
