The resulted pieces from the residency are based on an initial research into the traditions and historical memory of the Azorean culture, a small exploration of its customs and its day-to-day, all these inputs were observed from a purely formal perspective.

I worked on how to conceptualize a series of functional furniture based on traditional local culture, through small gestures which plays on fishing, its traditional costumes as “mulher do capote” and how it plays the never-defined balance of past and future to contemporize the vision of crafts and design and its hybridization.

The Azorean hood (in Portuguese, ‘capote e capelo’) is a traditional garment worn up until the 1930s. A large cape that covered a woman’s figure, allowing only a glimpse of her face, the origin of the ‘capote-e-capelo’ is controversial. Some say that it came from Flanders and others state that it is an adaptation of mantles and cowls that were fashionable in Portugal in the 17th and 18th centuries. Varying from island to island in the cut of the cape and the arrangement of the cowl, made in heavy electric-blue cloth that lasted for generations and was handed down from mothers to daughters.

All the pieces were developed during 2 intense weeks within the W&T context in collaboration with artisans who work with local materials such as vime (Alcidio Andrade) and cryptomeria (Horacio Raposo).