Field Studies - An introduction

The aesthetic of Mark Krebs has always been inherently linked to Northern India. A huge part of the project is about celebrating the craft of rug making in the regions I work in, so that connection is both obvious and necessary.

But when I distill what I actually do as a designer, I think of myself as a tether between the rug weavers in India and the homes people are creating here in Canada.

The weavers don’t necessarily know what Canadian homes look like, let alone where our interiors might be heading aesthetically. And vice versa, your average rug enthusiast isn’t about to hop on a plane, build relationships with weaving communities, learn the craft, and start communicating their tastes directly to the people making the rugs.

I’m acting, in some sense, on behalf of both parties.

That is admittedly a rather clinical way of looking at design. My own tastes and interests bleed into every decision I make, of course, but I still think it’s a fairly accurate picture of my role.

That same bridge has always existed within the photography and visual language of Mark Krebs. I photograph the looms, workshops, and landscapes of India, then juxtapose those images against Canadian interiors throughout the website and our marketing. One piece that has always felt missing, though, is the Canadian landscape itself.

Enter my friend Jobair.

Jobair and I met about a year ago at the (sometimes) annual Montreal design market Souk, where he was showing his company, Milo & Dexter. Milo & Dexter is a Montreal-based knitwear company focused on Canadian wool and a farm-to-fashion supply chain. Needless to say, we hit it off.

He shares my interest in thoughtful supply chains, although his undertaking is arguably a little more masochistic. Jobair has been working to reconnect pieces of the Canadian wool industry, which was largely dismantled as textile and garment manufacturing moved offshore through the 1980s and 1990s.

One of the stranger consequences is that a significant amount of Canadian wool now has so little commercial value that farmers may have no viable market for it. Sheep are often raised primarily for meat, while the wool has become a byproduct rather than a valuable material. This is the industry Jobair has decided to dive into and start connecting the dots within. It makes my sourcing trips to India look like a cute vacation.

Naturally, we started talking about how we might work together. We operate in different worlds, me in home textiles and him in fashion, but wool gives us an obvious shared thread.

We eventually landed on a collaborative photo and video project we’re calling FIELD STUDIES, based around his home in the Eastern Townships, southeast of Montreal in rural Quebec.

The idea was fairly simple: bring our products together, photograph them within the farms and landscapes connected to Canadian wool, and see what happened. Celebrate the landscape. Celebrate the material. Make some interesting images.

Over the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing the project with you. We worked with the power couple (and my good friends) Thom Fougere and Jessica Facteau, who were the photographers and art directors on the shoot. We also shot quite a bit of video, and it’s the first time I’ve approached Mark Krebs imagery in a slightly more abstract way, so I’m excited to see how the direction resonates. 

For the next few months, we’ll also be hosting a selection of Milo & Dexter products on our website as well, giving us a chance to introduce their incredible knitwear to the Mark Krebs customer.

Looking forward to sharing more in the coming weeks.