The first collection, “Substance in a Cushion”, is inspired by a poem in the writer Gertrude Stein’s book, “Tender Buttons”. Like her writing, the collection hopes to inspire curiosity about everyday, seemingly mundane objects in a new and even strange way. The notion of “substance” is twofold: the idea of physical matter, the way in which an object takes up space, as well as the concept of “mattering”, the way in which these objects mean something to us. The collection hopes to encourage contemporary designers to explore this notion of substance, as well as an object’s relationship to space – whether in new form, material or approach.