Fourth Letter
Introducing Ahwē Aimée
Hello hello🖤
I hope everyone is having a lovely September! It feels like we are slowly walking into fall, more breezy winds, less heat and humidity.
It’s been a busy few months in the studio. Our fourth NY NOW show, a new collection (launching real soon), and our newest space within DŌHEE STUDIO, Ahwē Aimée.
It’s a space for collections drawn directly from the classical arts: theatre, ballet, music - the works that have carried stories of love and life for a long time, and our interpretation and study of them in metallic form.
The name comes from two languages. 아회(ahwē), a Korean word for a gather around art. In Joseon Korea, especially through the late 1700s, scholars and artists would come together to share a love of art, conversing and immersing themselves in it. (And having lots of fun while doing it, it seems. With lots of music with drinks? What more can we ask for.) Aimée a French for “beloved.” I kept mulling and playing with words (this is also when I was trying to find the right name for our studio mascot Cupid) and I liked the word not only for its meaning but also for its sound: the “Ae” in it echoes 애, the character for love in Korean, like a little easter egg in the name and it seemed perfect. Since these collections under Ahwē Aimée turn so much on the love inside classical art, we gave the name Aimée to our gather, Ahwē, and to our mascot Cupid.
This grew naturally from the line our studio works by: Aiming Romance, in Golden Light. Like Cupid, we take aim in golden light — at bench, in the studio - clear-eyed, in control, and precise with care. As I touched on last letter, I think of each handcrafted piece as a vessel. In the studio, while it is being made, it holds the thought of the sketch and idea, then the care and the rhythm of hand and heart in the craft. When it reaches the person it is made for, we hope it becomes a vessel of romance. Romance, as we mean it, is not only a feeling between people but a quality of attention and atmosphere. Sensory, ambient, and self-possessed.
I believe love is the most powerful force we carry as humans. Capable of the most beautiful and the most devastating things. The classical arts have held and shared that force for a long time - poetry, theatre, ballet, and music that we return to again and again, not for the drama of love but for the world love happens insdie them. Ahwē Aimée is where I let myself dive as deep as I want into each of these works of art —art of love— and where I get to share them with you. A gathering around the love that art keeps alive, one collection at a time.
Dohee