Home Appliances
Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary: TOILETPAPER and Samsung Discuss Limited-Edition Bespoke Panel Collection
6/12/2023
Good design isn’t just about looking good; it can merge form and function, transforming everyday objects into something truly exceptional. In line with this vision, Samsung and TOILETPAPER debuted a collection at Fuorisalone 2023 in April as part of Milan Fashion Week that aimed to redefine the essence of good design.
Samsung and TOILETPAPER, the creative studio founded in 2010 by renowned Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan and photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari, introduced four new limited-edition Bespoke refrigerator door panels. TOILETPAPER’s distinct and eye-catching style has been seamlessly incorporated into these new designs, highlighting the studio’s characteristic playful and surreal aesthetics. This collaboration offers consumers exciting opportunities to personalize their kitchens and pushes the boundaries of what’s possible within the Bespoke style.
To discuss the inspiration behind the collaboration, Samsung Newsroom spoke with the founders of TOILETPAPER, Micol Talso, Art Director and Project Lead at TOILETPAPER, and Jidam Hong, Head of Bespoke’s Aesthetic Intelligence Design Group at Samsung.
What were your initial thoughts about Samsung and TOILETPAPER’s collaboration on the new Bespoke panels? Were there any similarities in approach that stood out?
TOILETPAPER founders: TOILETPAPER and Samsung are both trying to break away from limitations, challenge norms and showcase a wide range of possibilities. TOILETPAPER does this through surreal images, disrupting existing design conventions to help people see how interesting familiar, everyday objects can be. Samsung Bespoke achieves this goal by handing over more control to the people using its appliances through personalization and customization options, which is an exciting approach for appliance designers. This common vision made us a good match. Everything can be a canvas for our images, so why not appliances? Our designs don’t necessarily have to live in magazines and inside design studios – now, they can exist in the kitchen too.
Hong (Samsung): Personalization was always a crucial part of our philosophy at Bespoke, and we were already well aware of TOILETPAPER’s colorful, evocative work. The studio’s designs have a striking but approachable feel, which is particularly popular with Millennial and Gen Z users. We felt that collaborating with TOILETPAPER would be an excellent next step forward in Bespoke’s personalization journey. Applying the eye-catching designs to our Bespoke refrigerators was an enriching creative experience, and we hope to use this work as a jumping-off point to expand into new designs in the future.
As an Art Director and Head of Design, respectively, you must both have a wealth of experience leading various projects. Which of these has had the most lasting impact on you?
Talso (TOILETPAPER): Since we first started TOILETPAPER, each project has been unique and exciting. Maybe that’s why I’m still here – the sense of surprise, the change, throwing oneself into new experiences and exploring unknown territories. It’s the lack of repetitiveness in TOILETPAPER’s creative process that attracts me most to it, thanks to our studio leaders Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari. They’ve always had the curiosity and courage to go further, whether it’s shifting from a magazine to a fashion brand or developing interactive exhibitions and designing everyday objects. Usually, when something works well, there is a temptation not to change it. But at TOILETPAPER, we have continued to evolve by being open to unusual collaborations, such as this latest one with Bespoke.
Hong: We have covered the Color, Material and Finish – or “CMF” – of a wide range of kitchen and home products, and each project has been an opportunity to learn and grow. We have been designing the CMF of home appliances: working with new shades and textures; staying on top of design trends; and learning how to push these trends further. This collaboration with TOILETPAPER was particularly interesting because the studio’s aesthetic has wholly different origins from the functional perspective that home appliance designs typically come from.