There's nothing quite like a pair of friends with similar creative minds and great intuition. Just like OC's own founders Carol and Humberto, Nick Andersen and Julie Ho of CONFETTISYSTEM started their paper partythings project without having to think twice about working with one another. Together, they've created some of the prettiest and shiniest fringed objects we know (having worked with Lanvin, United Bamboo, MoMA PS1, The New York Times, POP magazine, and more), and even collaborating with OC on several occasions! I stopped by their very photogenic studio with OC Online's Anna to poke around and chat with the super sweet duo.
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Sofia Cavallo: Your studio is filled with colorful paper things! What kind of music gets you going?
Julie Ho: We love Ying Yangs Blog––they do mixes of 70s/80s Japanese jazz. It’s all very soothing and good to work with.

SC: What are you working on at the moment?
JH: Right now we're working on a new series of hanging paper decorations, our PARTYPARTY Collection; the shapes are based off of our classic piñata silhouettes. It's the first thing we're producing outside the studio and it will be available this summer. We're designing them in seven colors.
Nicholas Andersen: And they're all custom colors––you can just mix and match and create your own color palette. So far, we're set to sell them at The Future Perfect and Third Drawer Down in Melbourne.

SC: These shiny, colorful boxes on your windowsill––did you make them as well?
JH: We always collect ephemera, things that catch our eye. Our windowsill is where we keep everything. It like, builds up––
NA: It grows... Because there's so much we love.
JH: It's kind of crazy!

SC: So cool. Do you guys have a favorite tiny thing in your studio?
JH: This woven skeleton. [Pictured] I actually got it in California at a store but I think it's from Mexico. It definitely has a Mexican vibe to it.

SC: What are your favorite projects that you've worked on?
NA: Definitely Alber Elbaz's surprise birthday party at the boathouse in Central Park last year. It was sort of intimate––like 100 or 200 people? It was our best party last summer for sure. The theme was a secret flower garden, so we created hundreds of paper flowers for it.
JH: Yeah it was amazing! The bird heads for Opening Ceremony were also really fun to work on.
NA: The idea was for the birds to be very wild and completely imaginary. We love working on crazy pieces for OC because it always looks amazing in the stores. And the OC Cinco de Mayo WINDOW a few years ago is always a favorite.

SC: How did your classic color palette of pastel aqua and peach with metallic silver, blue, and gold come about?
NA: It was a process! But at the same time color is so intuitive for us.
JH: We were really drawn to metallics and the contrast they create with the pastel shades. And it's colorful but it doesn't stand out.
NA: It's on the verge of being sweet, and it almost works as a neutral, because it has every color in it. It can work in any room. We really looked hard for the perfect colored papers; it was exciting when it finally came together.

SC: You two must make a killer piñata.
JH: Oh yeah, they are piñatas! They have a little hinge door and we fill it with our own hand-cut confetti.
NA: Piñatas are technically the first object we created together.

SC: But that means your pieces are breakable, ultimately!
JH: We love the idea of people breaking them––
NA: It's like an offering. And it's just so beautiful to see the actual confetti flying. It's slow-falling and really pretty.
JH: It's so much fun; it really gets the party going. Once it starts breaking, everyone gets this crazy fun energy! It's really intense. And then people start dancing...
NA: Oh yeah! We recently did a party at Santos with Spencer Sweeney, and $hayne got up and did this whole walk. He started voguing with the broken piñata––he transformed it into a dress, then a clutch bag, and a giant collar. He put it on his head. It was amazing!

SC: So amazing! Why the name CONFETTISYSTEM?
JH: It was actually the name of a band that we were in just for one summer. It was a short musical project but we would decorate the stage. We had already known each other for a long time though.
NA: We had mutual friends who went to school together, and we met through them.

SC: Do you remember your first conversation?
NA: We talked about doing something together right off the bat; we had seen each other's places and liked each other's aesthetics. We both made things. We knew we had to work on something.

SC: What were you doing before you decided to start working together?
JH: We were both working at Martha Stewart Living, the magazine, doing prop styling and set design.

SC: Was this pre-or post- Martha being in jail?
NA: [Laughs] Right after.
JH: So we knew each other and both ended up working there. And we'd see each other every day and were inspired by the same things––a lot of paper-based ephemera. Nothing collectible or expensive, but like 99-cent store faded papers and little details. We wanted to create our own fantasy versions of those objects.
NA: We were seeking out these things so much, we wondered if we could begin creating them ourselves. So we started to think about making an entire world of paper-based objects for our first shoot.

SC: Tell us about your studio's neighborhood. Where do you go for a good lunch bite?
JH: That's a great question. I guess we go to Whole Foods a lot; I love the trail mix selection and the salads.
NA: Yeah, the salad bar is where you'll see us. I also get a lot of tea there.
JH: For a more leisurely lunch, we go to Co., the pizza restaurant that Sullivan Street Bakery's Jim Lahey has on 9th Avenue. They make delicious, crispy pizza with really fresh ingredients, like spinach and good cheeses. They also have really good soups and salads, and meatballs too.
NA: There's also Grand Szechuan right across the street.

SC: How about coffee?
JH: For coffee, there's nothing super close, but we like Stumptown at the Ace Hotel.
NA: We really like our area. It's kind of far away from where all our friends are but it's kind of cool.
JH: It's like old New York. All these stores on our street display mannequins and weird, really random stuff.
NA: We love going to these stores and looking through their shelves. They have lots of dead stock and cool tags and mannequins.
JH: And then the flower market is just a few blocks away, so it's really fun to go there in the morning and get flowers.

SC: Are your individual apartments decorated with tons of shiny things as well?
JH: Not at all, we each have one or two shiny things. It’s so stimulating in here that it's nice to go home to something different.
NA: It’s funny how that works.

SC: What are you doing when you're not making paper things?
NA: I just started doing ceramics; it was my major in school.
JH: I adopted a dog recently, so I've been spending a lot of time with him.

SC: Who are your favorite artists that you draw inspiration from?
JH: We both love Sheila Hicks. She’s a textile artist and does amazing weaving and wall sculptures with thread and yarn.
NA: Some of the pieces we make have that similar energy of creating an object with a voice.
JH: We love James Turrell too, his work is amazing. He creates amazing spaces with light, and we think a lot about light when we create installations. It's important for shaping the mood.

SC: If you had an unlimited budget and space, what would be your dream project?
NA: We’ve been talking about doing a playground with interesting forms, shapes, and colors. And cool shadows that would change with the light.

SC: What are your upcoming projects?
NA: We're doing a backdrop for MoMA PS1's Warm Up this summer, which starts in a few weeks. We're designing the stage for the opening day, Saturday, July 7th. Can't wait to see Light Asylum!

SC: Would you describe yourselves as perfectionists?
JH + NA: Yeah! [Laughs]
NA: We like making every element of each object.
JH: I worked with Tom Sachs for awhile and found that similar obsession––that same love of making everything, down to the small details.

SC: If you could work with anyone in the world, who would it be?
NA: We love working with OC and the Lanvin crew. It's about people who get our aesthetic.
JH: And people whose work we respect as well. That’s the great thing about being able to collaborate with so many different creative people. It's one of the best parts of our job.


FILED UNDER: Art , Studio Visit , Interview , New York , CONFETTISYSTEM , Nicholas Andersen , Julie Ho , Anna Mackenzie