A round-up of things that have been shaping how we think about the work right now. Not recommendations exactly — more like evidence of an ongoing conversation.

A book: a slim catalogue from a 1982 exhibition of Japanese craft that we found in a used bookshop. The photographs are badly printed by current standards but that doesn't matter. The objects are so good that even a muddy reproduction communicates what needs communicating.

A material: undyed linen, specifically in a weight we found last month from a supplier in Belgium. It drapes differently than anything we've used before. We have no plans for it yet, which is the most interesting state — material without commitment, potential without pressure.

A question we keep returning to: what does it mean for something to be "finished?" Not in the sense of complete, but in the sense of done-enough. There is a point at which more work makes a thing worse, not better. We are trying to locate that point more reliably.

We get asked often about durability. People want to know how long something will last, which is a reasonable question. The honest answer is: we don't entirely know. We know what the materials have done in testing. We know what similar materials have done over decades. We have some confidence, but not certainty.

What we have more confidence in is whether something is worth making durable in the first place. Durability is a kind of bet — you are saying that this object deserves to persist, that it will still matter to someone in ten or twenty years. That is a serious claim. It is worth being careful about which things you make it for.

There is a version of durability discourse that is mostly about guilt reduction — we feel better buying something described as lasting because it suggests the purchase is somehow virtuous. We try not to participate in that. A thing that lasts is only good if the thing is worth having in the first place. We try to make things worth having. Duration is downstream of that.