Concept Design: Building Block

Building Block is a Los-Angeles based design project that emphasizes the minimal aspects of accessories design - incorporating only the imperative and practical components and excluding the extravagant ones. The Building Block studio creates leather handbags and other effortlessly chic leather goods such as clutches, wallets, keychains, and coin purses that come in a variety of neutral, earth-toned color ways.

Sisters Nancy and Kimberly Wu, founders of Building Block, both formerly worked in design-related capacities prior to the conception of their minimal accessories brand. Kimberly was an exterior automotive designer at Honda and Nancy did footwear design at Nike.

For SS17, Nancy and Kimberly have derived bits and pieces of inspiration from their former careers in industrial design - with notable hues of lilac, concrete grey, and PVC plastic - which the sisters say is reminiscent of the 3D rendering software utilized for their projects in their design roles. "This relationship between the artificiality of computer-generated imagery paired with our geometrical silhouettes reveal the purity in construction of each bag archetype."