Curves designer Sean Brown knows how to play with form | Canada Voices

Toronto artist, designer and creative director Sean Brown is exhibiting a pop-up store and retrospective in Montreal this summer, showcasing the greatest hits of Curves, the independent houseware and apparel brand he co-founded in 2020.

At the centre of the exhibition at Montreal’s Foil Gallery hangs a roughly five-foot-tall, two-toned pink Curves tote – a supersized version of the sculptural bag that exploded last summer and has since been nearly impossible to nab online, where Curves products are primarily sold. Suspended from the ceiling like a chandelier, it’s a cheeky homage to the bag becoming “way bigger than we intended,” Brown said.

Since launching, Curves has carved out a space at the centre of contemporary design culture, thanks to its uncanny ability to tap into the zeitgeist.

“In my very brief time studying design at the now-defunct International Academy of Design and Technology in Toronto, one lesson really resonated with me,” Brown said. “That was how to understand what culture needs before it does – how to tap into what’s beneath the surface. I always keep that in mind, alongside approachability, whenever I create something.”

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Brown had a rocky upbringing, entering foster care at age 14 and later dropping out of high school. Yet his need to express himself creatively remained a constant. The son of Jamaican parents, he was inspired by reggae music, the Caribana festival and street culture. In high school he started selling T-shirts he embellished with a Bedazzler kit. (Today, Brown is often seen wearing sports jerseys and varsity jackets decked out with sequins).

“It’s a familiar story of how one becomes an artist,” he said. “I was fuelled by trauma, passion, resilience and creativity.”

At first, he thought he wanted to be a Disney animator, then a photographer, before settling on becoming a designer. “Whatever it was, I knew I was going to bring life into things,” he said.

Brown was drawn to unlikely pairings. He revered the work of Walt Disney and immersed himself in hip-hop culture. While working in retail at Aritzia, Apple and American Apparel, he experimented with reworking second-hand clothing and photography in his spare time.

With Curves, Brown transforms ordinary items into playful acts of visual storytelling: a colour-changing umbrella that reveals lyrics by Mobb Deep and Missy Elliott when wet; a mirror shaped like a puddle that’s designed to rest on the floor; an incense holder cast from Brown’s own hands.

But at the heart of the designer’s sensibility is a fascination with disrupting form. Take the Inflatable Ego Chair, a boldly coloured vinyl armchair that balloons into a nearly four-foot-wide, two-and-a-half-foot-high piece of surrealist furniture; or the hand-tufted CD rug, each resembling one of Brown’s favourite hip-hop albums from the early aughts.

“Maybe this has something to do with how I grew up, but I don’t like when things get left behind,” Brown said. “I know CDs are an extinct technology, but they can still exist and they can still be art. Giving things new form without being too precious about it is right in my sweet spot.”

The Montreal retrospective, which runs until Sept. 22, gathers the designer’s most memorable trompe-l’œil works under one roof. Objects include the Floor Candelabra, a five-foot statement piece that treats lighting as sculpture. Nearby, the Archway Vinyl Holder transforms record storage into an architectural illusion. Designed as a wall-mounted rack for LPs, the curved form mimics the look of a doorway or recessed niche. Like many of Brown’s pieces, it blurs the line between functional object and art, turning everyday items into design gestures that reflect the brand’s offbeat sense of humour.

“I’ll never get tired of walking the line between retail and art,” Brown said.

The summer show is a celebration – and a teaser – of what’s still to come. Following its Canadian stop, the pop-up is scheduled to land in Baltimore, Md., this fall, with a potential visit to Asia later this year.

Curves was never intended to remain a niche design label, Brown said, but to evolve into a collection that’s equally at home in an influencer’s bachelor pad as it is in a family living room. Ultimately, he hopes to expand the brand into a network of storefronts around the world: One-stop destinations for the playful, design-forward universe he continues to build.