Kitchens are one of the most important parts of your house. You could not have a garage, or you could even live in an apartment without a living room, but without a kitchen it is simply impossible. I mean, it’s the space where you are going to prepare all the food you need to, you know, continue to exist. Oh, please, do not let your kitchen be just a liminal space without life, without affection, without one or another element of decoration that make it stop being a merely functional area to cook so that it becomes a place where your family and guests want to be.
In this journey to make kitchens much more affable and pleasant spaces, global appliance brands have tried to design increasingly stylized appliances, although design in the kitchen is not something new, actually. I don’t know what happened, because if you look back at the 1950s or 1960s appliances, they had an intentionality in their design and were meant to be cute, as well as functional.
Lowe’s and Samsung present: the Bespoke line
One of the brands that has put the most focus on design in recent years has been Samsung, which has also developed a whole great line of smart appliances that connect to the internet and offer hitherto unimaginable features. In this new partnership with Lowe’s, she presents her Bespoke line, created in collaboration with artists Alexa Meade, famous for her installations and art painted directly on human bodies; Amber Vittoria, a graphic artist and poet acclaimed for her prints who made it into Forbes’ “30 under 30” list in 2020; and Domonique Brown, an artist specializing in Afro-descendant culture whose art has been featured in Forbes, Disney, Airbnb and more.
Of the entire line, the exclusive version for Lowe’s stores stands out, the Samsung’s Bespoke 4-Door French Door Refrigerator panels, is embellished with a piece of Brown’s that you will not find in any other supermarket or appliance store.
The three women received carte blanche to work their creations, so they enjoyed absolute freedom. Each one permeated their respective imprints in their pieces, such as the fluidity of Meade’s stroke, the vibrant color of Vittoria and the strength of Brown, which are undoubtedly felt in every final product.
Meade makes your kitchen dance in an ocean of blue tones and breaks the straight lines with large brush strokes, which in the original work were created with a gigantic brush. In Vittoria’s we find parsimony, tranquility, solid colors and simple layers, perhaps more suitable for you if you like minimalism in your kitchen.
In the case of Brown, my personal favorite, there is more literality: he wants to get you out of the idea of being in a city and that the refrigerator is a window overlooking a balcony with water, a bridge and a full moon in the background.
It remains to be seen whether most consumers will adopt a more diverse and daring color palette inside the kitchen, as it was once popular in the 50s and 80s, to replace the cold and monochromatic tones of stainless steel or boring white paint that appliances brands have been delivering for us for over 60 years.