2024/05/12 creative direction Lounge Publishing

Novembre LOUNGE? Say no more

Acceleration depends on decelerating. The ability to decelerate depends on space and materials.

The Novembre Lounge at LOW CLASSIC aims to provide both.

The space is a reading room, inspired by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s Tapis de lecture (2000), taking up the top floor of the LOW CLASSIC space in Yaksu, Seoul. At the centre is a large carpet: large enough to lie on, to play on, to hold a loved one, or to roll about.

The materials are suggested readings: a curated set of 50 or so magazines. Together, they offer a subjective cartography of present-day independent publishing, covering fashion, architecture, fine art, environmentalism, dance and poetry. Around fifty different platforms to view the present, each made by a team of enthusiasts; all dedicated to describing the world from a particular perspective.

Deep, radiant purple is the colour of the carpet, a shade repeated in the signage, and accented with neon-green windows. It’s the purple of magicians and popes; the night sky in a video game and wisteria in spring. A colour that is both soft and loud, serene and brutal; hot and cold, inducing action and stillness at once.

Deep as dream; deep enough to fall into, asleep or in love.

Hanne Lippard, the Berlin-based artist, provides a soundtrack. Her voice glides through the space intermittently: a vibration in the air, another character accompanying the reader.

The Novembre Lounge at LOW CLASSIC is an airport lounge for a city on the move: a place to rest, read, and return to the world recharged. A portal that contains portals. A space for public recreation.

It is, ultimately, an act of physicalization. Novembre and LOW CLASSIC are both modern companies. They both respond to the contemporary condition by producing things: real, actual things. Things to wear, and things to look at, things to consider, and things to love. Existing several timezones apart, but communicating still, they come together for this: a space for inspiration and dialogue. It’s the first installment of a collaboration, which will be accompanied by the launch of a Novembre x LOW CLASSIC capsule collection, namely “Lovembre”.