scar.id store, one year.
It´s inevitable, sometimes we have to clean and (re)start. More or less rationally, always more emotionally, driven by a fulmination will, hedonism or selfishness, basic need or economic/social opportunity: it has to be now or, it´s not worth; worth it? Because at another time we have no longer 30, and at 40´s there is more books read, more visited cities and more philosophies and ethics and aesthetics. And more life constructed on black clothes and piles of magazines at the corner of a discreet fifth floor skyline over Porto, dreaming with golden mirrors and…
It should be a moment when we could look at the mirror and ask: what are we doing with our lives. Sometimes we could understand that we are following a random direction of life or old patterns; elaborating and trying to materialize a persona between what we want to be and what we are. And between what we are and want to be, what we were and how others see us: there is an identity that we don´t know, but we imagine most of the (aware) time, but we never saw on the mirror.
The city? It´s what we most like (besides each other). We can´t stand going out of the city, to the nature, green, suburb. Out, no. It´s something genetic, the geography it´s mixed-up, we lost ourselves, there is a need to go back. The city. Travel through cities, urban centres, the SoCIeTY, people, streets, squares, caffes, hotels, cinemas, bookstores, buildings, restaurants and stores. The store as a symbol of the (re)new urban culture. We travel to feel the contemporary urban culture, even online, mainly online; the contemporary urban culture, global but local, aesthetic, more aesthetic then ethic. But also ethic, in a world where (only) the aesthetic should concern.
Porto? Not always. There was a time that was Paris, one day will be Paris, we´ll always have Paris. “Oporto based, worldwide (Paris) oriented”. Porto, a middle scale between worldwide and local. Big apartments (and steel cheap), good food (increasingly expensive), walking with the car parked at the door. Sun (80% days raining), hot (but north cold), cool nights, resting days, sometimes. Tourism, most of the times, almost always, but not tourism, international travellers, saving the month at the last day, giving value to the made in Portugal.
Design? Yes, somewhere between Architecture and Visual Arts. Photography and Interiors. From fashion to furniture, bags, jewellery, small objects, stationery and ceramics. Small identity passions. And there were, hidden in closets or in boxes, between the time of the show and the press; the exhibition and the prize. Kept, forgotten, not continued media attention. Is there anyone who likes it? Besides 5min on tv, 10 at the fashion show and 15 in the exhibition room? Is there someone who buys it?
Should we try? Let’s try? We can´t promise you nothing, we like it, let’s try?
One year has passed. Thank you.
To those who believed and those who did not but supported. To those who don´t know what design is, and those who know but don´t care. To those who came once and those who never realised why came back.
To those who had buy a piece, or five. To whom we showed the basement as our secret archive and who just bought items from the there. To those who save during months to buy that piece. To those who understand global and timeless design. To those who just see the windows, or just the price, or just came to copy.
To those who design it. And believed in us. To those who never sold a piece, but continue because we all believe that there will be the right costumer. To those who wait for the end of the month email to pay the rent. To the ones that doesn´t believed in us, but it worked.
A year has passed. Thank you. Turn out well?
Better than one of us expected, worse than the other.
It was easy? Did we get rich? Will we be rich? Are we going to expand to Paris? No, no, no, someday.
Did we influence anyone? To the design scene? To the aesthetics and the ethics?
Does it worth? A store selling Portuguese designers? Sure. In Porto? Yes for us and to the Portuguese? Doubts. For the world?
We think so and we want to continue, if so for aesthetic and ethic stubbornness; For the relations created with all the designers and clients; For the beside things that happened because of the store; For the persons that understood what design is about, and started appreciate what we do; For the pieces that came out the closets and boxes, for all the samples that became production, for all the extra pieces raised in the middle of collections. For all those pieces that will never be sold, but surely need a white storefront in the Oporto Arts District. For us.
Let´s keep going. The second year.
Scar.id store lost its store. We are now scar.id and we are scar.id. We don´t want to be the store, we have never wanted be just the store. “Oporto based, worldwide oriented, working with the identity through design.”
Making projects, designing homes, taking pictures, installations, windows, designing products, ceramics, bags; identities; hotels, restaurants, bars, apartments and stores, interiors and exteriors, dinner tables and environments…in Porto and worldwide.
Let´s keep going. Scar.id lost the store, but the store continues. Rua do Rosário, 253, Porto and scar-id.com.