Gohar World Resurrects Ancient Lacquerware Traditions with Refined Elegance
The contemporary design house celebrates disappearing crafts through a luminous new collection of hand lacquered objects, honouring the Japanese techniques mastered by modernist icon Eileen Gray.
AI-assisted voice playback. Starts only when you choose Play.
At the heart of Gohar World’s design philosophy lies an unwavering reverence for the artisanal traditions that shape our material world. The emerging collection of lacquerware pieces stands as a profound testament to this commitment, breathing contemporary life into centuries old methods whilst honouring the craftspeople whose knowledge remains the lifeblood of these disappearing practices.
The introduction of lacquerware to the Gohar World roster represents far more than a seasonal offering; it constitutes a deliberate and considered homage to one of modernism’s most visionary figures. Eileen Gray, a luminary whose contributions to twentieth century design were criminally underappreciated for the better part of a century, devoted herself to mastering the exquisite art of lacquer application. In 1920s Paris, Gray undertook an extraordinary apprenticeship with Seizo Sugawara, a revered Japanese master craftsperson, immersing herself in the intricate protocols of a technique refined across countless generations.
The process itself possesses an almost alchemical quality. The sap extracted from the lacquer tree transforms through patient, layered application into surfaces of breathtaking luminosity and depth. Each coat must cure with meticulous precision; each subsequent layer builds upon the last in a dance of patience and skill that cannot be rushed or mechanised. This labour intensive methodology yields objects of singular beauty, their surfaces seeming to hold light within themselves, radiating a warmth that speaks to human hands and human time invested in their creation.
A Legacy Restored
Gray’s contributions remained largely confined to the margins of design discourse for decades, a puzzling lacuna that speaks to the historical oversight of women pioneers in modernism. Yet as the 1960s unfolded and Gray entered her ninth decade, the design world finally began to acknowledge the revolutionary nature of her vision. Her lacquered pieces, with their elegant minimalism and sophisticated chromatic restraint, revealed themselves as prescient articulations of modernist principle.
By presenting this collection, Gohar World participates in the essential work of restoration and remembrance. These are not mere nostalgic gestures toward the past, but rather living dialogues with tradition. Each lacquered object speaks to the possibility of beauty derived from constraint, from the marriage of function and form, and from the patient accumulation of skill across generations of dedicated practitioners.
The collection invites those with discerning sensibilities to contemplate not merely what an object is, but the invisible architecture of knowledge, patience and cultural inheritance embedded within it. In an age of disposability and haste, Gohar World’s lacquerware emerges as a quiet manifesto for a different way of being with the things we live amongst.
Imagery courtesy of Gohar World (@gohar.world).