Everything you need to know about Virgil Abloh protégé Samuel Ross
With two solo art exhibitions – one at Friedman Benda in New York entitled ‘Coarse’ and the other at London’s White Cube gallery called ‘Land’ – releases with Hublot, Beats by Dre and Nike, 2023 was, by most counts, a big year for Ross. But for the designer, it was the culmination of years of grafting. ‘The reality is that these types of crescendo moments take about two years to predicate,’ he tells us. ‘You have to forecast for it.’
Born in Brixton to second-generation Windrush parents (his mum is Bajan, his dad Vincentian), Ross spent his childhood between London and Northampton, where he now lives with his young family. He studied illustration at De Montfort University, after which he began working under the late Virgil Abloh.
It has now been nearly ten years since he founded cult menswear label A Cold Wall* and, after a decade in the industry, he has begun to lean, quietly, away from fashion’s clutches and towards the arms of design. What prompted that shift? ‘I’m still deeply enthralled by garments, but I am always looking to create newness. My attention has definitely honed in on craft and artisanal means of making and production,’ he explains.
‘I think that what you’re seeing is an artist starting to mature and understand how to play the game with a Midas touch.’
Recent forays into design include a much-anticipated tap under his design studio SR_A for bathroom giant Kohler. His product designs recall early works by Marc Newson (who’s a fan) and the graphics of Peter Saville (also a friend). It combines his beloved, striking, lucid-orange shade (see his trunk for Louis Vuitton or his ‘Big Bang Tourbillon’ watch for Hublot in the same hue) with avant-garde jagged lines.
Whether he’s designing taps or tables, it all starts with pencil and paper. ‘I found that the most traditional mediums – pen, pencil, charcoal, Indian ink – are also the most expressive when it comes to capturing a feeling or a sense of motion,’ he explains.
Ross paints in his studio in Northampton’s countryside, loved for its promise of ‘solace and quiet’, while London is where he heads to soak up the city’s ‘reactive kinetic’ energy and to ‘integrate with people in the community, or suppliers and fabricators’.
He often turns to steel (as in his limited-edition sculptural seat ‘Amnesia or Platelet Apparition?’ created in 2021 or his benches for last year’s Design Miami/) to materialise his visions. Despite his quest for newness, he doesn’t appear to have lost his signature style: utilitarian yet visionary; urban yet still luxurious. And, if last year is anything to go by, we can’t wait to see what he’ll do in 2024. samuel-ross.com
