Square Deal: Brooklyn Designers Check Into Plaid

Brooklyn designers are on the grid this season, playing with checks and plaids on textiles, rugs, homewares and sculpture. Some draw on 1920s checkerboard flooring, while others channel 1980s New Wave brights.

The Patchwork Maxi Tank Dress by designer Parron Allen of Prospect Lefferts Gardens repurposes fabric scraps in a grid inspired by Mondrian and Yves Saint Laurent.

Riffing on discarded boxes found on walks, Gowanus-based sculptor, painter and plaster artisan Stephen Antonson’s box sculptures reveal unexpected textures and patterns.

Checks, grids, dots and squiggles are favorite motifs for functional ceramics handmade by Josephine Heilpern of Crown Heights.

Bed Stuy-based Dusen Dusen’s anthropomorphic Everybody salt and pepper grinders stack faces, checks and stripes.

In Soho, artist Ethan Cook translates minimalist woven paintings into rugs featuring attenuated grids and oversize checks.

Editor’s note: A version of this story appeared in the Spring/Summer 2022 issue of Brownstoner magazine.

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