Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder, Jack of all Trades, and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
What is Raven Vanguard’s design aesthetic? (If you prefer brass tacks over any form of explanation, and you're merely looking for an abridged version, please skip to the second last paragraph) We field this question daily now that our showrooms at Raven Vanguard House are finally open to our clientele, collaborators, and the international arts community. And it was a friend and collaborator’s observation this past week indicating that (and I am paraphrasing here because the context and conversation would take hours to explain) we had conceived the essence of Satan’s playground, that spawned the very subject matter of today’s Once-over.
The second most common question asked about us relates to an overwhelming curiosity about our creative process. Perhaps, I’ll tackle this unanswerable inquiry next week, as we hurtle ever so close to the final curtain call on this extraordinary decade.
My Parents instilled in me an enduring sense and duty of noblesse oblige concerning my interactions with others wherein I am morally compelled to treat others honorably and with generosity. Brooke and Dakota were raised similarly. What does this have to do with Raven Vanguard’s design aesthetic? Plenty, if you place great value on genuineness, authenticity, and incorruptibility.
When Brooke and I first conceived Raven Vanguard, we did so believing we have no responsibility to appease the masses. After all, design is art, and we are artists, and radical art is not for everyone. Admittedly, we also set out to disrupt the landscape of design entirely and to be of permanent consequence. Nevertheless, our philosophical approach to design and our interrelationships with others is overarched by this everlasting duty of noblesse oblige.
As its foundational starting point, Raven Vanguard acknowledges a deep-rooted indebtedness to historical antecedents. However, our aesthetic is not stylistically tethered to any single point of reference or origin. And our sources of inspiration extend well beyond the fields of architecture and interior design seamlessly crossing over several artistic disciplines into fashion, dance, theater, film, literature, and music.
We take the time to investigate and explore histories of art, culture, design, decoration, architecture, furniture making, space utilization, and urbanism to bring you an aesthetic steeped in beauty, romanticism, phantasmagoria, and sensuality. We’d also rather rejoice in the sacredness and eroticism of religious, otherworldly, alchemical, and spiritual imperatives than entirely secular ones.
By intention, there is a mysteriousness to everything we do. We are part dreamer, symbolist, artist, engineer, historian, psychic conjurer, and mad scientist. We believe, without doubt, that hidden within the magick of darkness is light. And, like Jung, we believe in the alchemical notion that this invisible light compounds itself into the lumen naturae from which all things derive. We conceive and create with a nod to our ever-developing secret knowledge of ritual, craft, and the arcane.
Also, essential to the development of our aesthetic is the steadfast belief that popularity, fashionableness, and universality in no way equate to quality, being exceptional, or distinctiveness. In our creative universe, we find psychic equilibrium in forging a union between the so-called opposites, modernity, and classicism. In other words, we focus our sight on the transformational coalescence of mysteriousness, innovativeness, alchemy, and timelessness.
So, how do you describe in words and the lexicon of the English language an aesthetic experience that is so utterly sensorial? I always struggle mightily when it comes to this endeavor, but I’ll give it a go anyway. Elegant, but edgy; bewitching femininity, although not overtly genteel or ladylike; a cinematic amalgamation of color, texture, pattern, and shape; Nouveau Victorian; eclectic, but uber-sophisticated; decadent, yet thoroughly graceful; sinfully dark, but not dangerously so; sexually provocative and wildly erotic, yet oh so romantic, and dripping in intimacy; an ecstatic sense of confessional-like solitude, but not in any way that is disillusioning or forsaking; voyeuristic, but absolutely communal; theatrically immersive, and addictingly so; the mystique, kinkiness, and melancholy of Inter-War Berlin; part Baum, part Carroll, part Gaiman, part Lynch, part McQueen, and part @RealGDT; opium den-fueled indulgence sans the long-ago vanished magical ingredient; guided by the transformative influences of sanctuary and lingering; back to the future where olde-world comfort trods upon the discontent of minimalism; an 18th Century Parisienne brothel practiced in the Seven Realm Arts that celebrates scandalous behavior and sensual pleasure in thought-provoking, not pandering ways; the divine unification of diverse cultural influences; Baroque in the sense of Bellini and Caravaggio; and Gothicism in the vein of Ann Radcliffe and Edward Gorey.
So, with that said, I guess the notion that we might have conceived Satan’s playground should be taken as a compliment of the highest order. Though, be that as it may, gratefully, the divine countenance of God Herself presides over Raven Vanguard House.