Where did you get your sense of creativity and design from?
Jesse: Growing up, I did a lot of building work helping my dad build our house. It was a lifelong project – I was five and I was digging the foundations by hand. I know how to do the plumbing because my brother and I were in charge of the upstairs bathroom. By the time we were done, when you turned the tap on, the water in the downstairs bathroom would turn on. We learned from it.

Was that your father’s line of work?
Jesse: My dad had no idea how to build – he could hardly hammer in a nail. It was just something he really wanted to do. We were living in Central America before and when we moved back to the US, he wanted to live off the land – provide everything internally and part of that was to build a house and have a garden. It was barely finished when we sold it and I was just starting university at the time.

So it was a constant work in progress?
Jesse: We were doing the interiors downstairs while we were still building the upstairs. It was a great project though. As a kid, I was in charge of my room so if I wanted anything, I had to build it. It’s learning the responsibilities of doing it right. I also wanted a skylight, so I cut a hole in the roof, but it always leaked when it rained – and my bed was directly underneath it. I told my dad but he said, you wanted it, you have to live with it. My mum was very upset with my dad for letting me do that. She told him, you have to fix it because Jesse doesn’t know how – his bed is wet all the time.

How about your family, Julie – do you come from a creative background?
Julie: My dad was a watchmaker and created a bunch of really great watches. I love the story of when he was young and living in London, he had no money and was staying in a flat where the landlord was a mean, old lady. There was an old cabinet in his room, and he’d take the drawers out and make watches using the wood from the back of them. He’d then sell them to make just enough money to run off to Scandinavia to play in a band. When he’d run out of money, he’d just go back to London to make another watch. Jesse and I visited the watch museum in Switzerland and they had one of his wooden watches in there. He tried to turn it into a business but it was too avant-garde at the time and nobody wanted to invest. He wound up in Hong Kong with a company that was installing clocks for the MTR. Now it’s all about photography for him, and travelling and writing.

How did you two meet?
Jesse: We met through a mutual friend. I was teaching at Parsons, and Julie was educated at Parsons. She was never my student, but everybody loves to say she was. She was doing ceramics at school. As faculty, we could use the facilities in the evenings, and I’d go to the ceramics department to make my own. I noticed there were some pieces that were really nice and similar to mine, so I was like, wow, somebody is copying me. I need to know who it is. Of course, that wasn’t the case, but that was how I learned of Julie.

Julie: I was very close to his best friend – she was in my class and also spoke French. She really worked her magic – talking to me and Jesse about each other, and planning outings together. She was a really good matchmaker.

How did Latitude 22N come about?
Jesse: Before we met, I’d already started thinking about a company, and when I met Julie, we started talking about it and what we’d do. We lived in Brooklyn and rented a small space, and got a kiln from a friend. At first, we continued with our own projects. Eventually they started to fit together. It didn’t really happen until we got to Hong Kong. I think it was our wedding in Switzerland that sealed everything together. We’re designers so we wanted to create everything for the wedding itself. We saw it as an opportunity to make it an amazing wedding, but also the start of our product line. It gave us a deadline, a theme and diversity of products.

And how did you decide on the name of the studio?
Jesse: Julie’s Swiss, but grew up in Hong Kong. I’m American but have lived in a lot of places. Thinking about what we’d do and whom we’re making products for, and being in Hong Kong, we kept coming back to the idea of the Silk Road. We thought a lot about latitude and longitude, lines and connecting places because we go to China a lot as it has great craft for ceramics, yet the products are brought to a European market.

How do you work together?
Jesse: I’m really good with my hands, and Julie’s really good with the computer, so sometimes it’s just faster if I do the hands stuff and Julie does computer work. I usually do the factory visits and make the prototype, then we sit down and talk about what needs to change.

What do you hope to see in the future for Latitude 22N?
Jesse: We’re very happy with where we are now, and just want to see strong, steady growth. One of the things we decided we really stand for are simple products that are well-made and last – designs that can fi in anywhere in the world. We also want to mix it up with other materials at some point, maybe textiles.

Latitude 22N is hosting an exhibition by students of ECAL’s Product Design Master program on 28 February from 6-9pm. The Sketching China exhibition will present the students’ drawings of the many places they visited during their one week trip in the southeast of China. Also, look out for Jesse’s upcoming exhibition at Amelia Johnson Contemporary. Entitled Subversive Undertones, a collection of intimate portraits and installations by Jesse will be on show from 5 March until 4 April.

Latitude 22N, Unit 16B, Man Foong Industrial Building, 7 Cheung Lee Street, Chai Wan, latitude22n.com
Amelia Johnson Contemporary, 6-10 Shin Hing St, Sheung Wan, ajc-art.com

The post At Home with Latitude 22N appeared first on Home Journal.