I’m so excited to see that this week, Treats! Magazine is featuring M (she just goes by M) – former model turned furniture designer – the incredible woman welder behind (wh)ORE HAüS Studios. They write, “In broad terms, M’s designs follow an industrial metal trend popular now in gastropubs and bachelor pads, but it’s her marketing strategy — artfully enigmatic selfies of her at work — that sets her apart.”
Above: “Crisscrossed. Just finished two of these Blackened Steel with Brass Lashing Console Tables. One for a private client, the other is bringing a little (wh)ORE to @hammerandspear. Xo”
Her furniture design studio site explains, “(wh)ORE HAüS was founded in 2012 by a model who empowered herself after a breakup by picking up a welding torch.” The name is defined thusly:
(wh)ORE HAüS
O R E – noun, 1. a source from which valuable matter (as metal) is extracted.
Further,
(wh)ORE HAüS is a play on words. The definition of the word “ORE” is: n. A source from which valuable matter (as metal) is extracted.
Adding the (wh) infuses the (wh)ORE HAüS brand with a provacative and unapologetic air of femininity.
Within the realm of (wh)ORE HAüS and it’s customers, the word (wh)ORE has taken on a semantic shift from a sexually derogatory denotation to an empowering connotation.
This is something I can relate to – welding and metalworking, even just a day in the shop, makes me feel like I want to enhance my femininity more than usual. It’s an expression of my identity that I find really interesting, because I don’t completely understand it. Before SRL shows, I’d always put on the reddest lipstick I could find so that, even though we were indistinguishable out there in the robots and fire, people would see there was a girl out there with all the guys. Then, when the guys made it a ceremony to borrow my lipstick before shows, and everyone wore lipstick during the super-macho spectacle, I enjoyed it even more.
M is gorgeous, hot, talented, smart and a goddess in my artist’s pantheon. So glad I discovered her, and that Treats! is showering her with well-deserved compliments!
Images here are screencapped and linked to the original, because Instagram is so lame about yanking people’s accounts.
