We don’t chase trends. We don’t polish the past to make it palatable. We strip it down to its rawest form—what was produced, what survived, what refused to be diluted. Our process is not about curation as a virtue. It’s about elimination. Every roll we touch has already failed the test of time, but we’re not here to mourn. We’re here to weaponize what’s left.
We don’t solicit. We don’t beg. We track. We know the names—Ansonia, F. Schumacher, the lesser-known mills that churned out excess in the ’80s, only to be buried under the weight of their own overproduction. These mills didn’t care about legacy. They cared about output. We care about what they left behind: rolls that are brittle, faded, or warped, but still hold the jagged edges of their original intent.
We don’t visit. We don’t negotiate. We find them in storage, in warehouses that forgot they existed, in the detritus of trade shows that ended in bankruptcy. The mills we work with are long dead. Their catalogs are not for sale. Their remnants are not for display. We take what we can, and we take it with the understanding that we are not their heirs—we are their executioners.
These are not the glossy brochures you’ll find in a designer’s office. These are the ones that were never meant to be seen. They’re the ones that were sent to dealers who never ordered them, or to clients who never paid. They’re the ones that were buried under the weight of newer, shinier, more “marketable” designs. We don’t need permission to access them. We don’t need approval. We find them in the backrooms of suppliers who know better than to ask questions.
These catalogs are not curated. They are discarded. They are the remnants of a system that valued quantity over quality, speed over permanence. We don’t edit them. We don’t clean them. We take what’s there—what’s broken, what’s incomplete, what refuses to be sanitized—and we let it speak for itself.
We don’t measure by beauty. We measure by endurance. Substrate? It must be what was used in the ’80s—non-woven, paper-backed, or whatever else the mill deemed acceptable at the time. Repeat? It must be what was printed, no matter how chaotic, no matter how off-center. Washfastness? It must be what survived, not what was tested in a lab. We don’t care if it fades. We care if it holds.
We don’t accept anything that was altered. No reprints. No reproductions. No attempts to “update” the original. We don’t care if it’s cracked. We don’t care if it’s warped. We care if it still has the teeth of its original design. If it doesn’t, it’s discarded. If it does, it’s kept—but only if it meets the brutalist standard: no compromise, no softness, no pretense.
Anything that doesn’t scream. Anything that tries to be subtle. Anything that was made to be “versatile.” We cut the ones that were designed to be “timeless.” We cut the ones that were made for “interiors.” We cut the ones that were printed with “care.” We don’t cut the ones that were made to break, to bleed, to refuse to be tamed. Those are the ones that stay.
We don’t curate for the sake of the market. We curate for the sake of the wreckage. What’s left is not a relic. It’s a wound. And we don’t heal it. We let it fester. We let it remind you why you’re here. We don’t ask for your admiration. We ask for your attention—and we take it, no matter how hard you try to look away.