Sensual leather and geometric angularity meet in this furniture collaboration between Bernard Dubois and Isaac Reina at Maniera Gallery in Brussels

MANIERA 21 by Bernard Dubois and Isaac Reina for Maniera Gallery. Photography: Jeroen Verrecht

Brussels’ Maniera Gallery presents MANIERA 21, its latest exhibition featuring a collaboration between leather goods designer Isaac Reina and architect Bernard Dubois.

Debuting on 15 February at the gallery, the collection combines Reina’s exquisite signature leather with Dubois’ geometric angularity. The pair have come together once before, back in 2018 when the Belgian architect designed Reina’s Paris boutique. The collection is characterised by intersecting lines and volumes, pure shapes where the two designers’ languages meet and converse. Each object’s structure is crafted in wood, then covered in natural or black tanned leather – Reina’s material of choice, adding sensual tactility and complimenting the extreme angles of the furniture.

The collection of objects showcase the leather’s supple flexibility with its versatile, shape shifting nature. ‘It is great to see how both Bernard and Isaac are looking for basic, clean lines; new shapes and faultless simplicity with detail,’ comments Amaryllis Jacobs, Maniera co-founder.

The collection includes eight domestic objects such as a lamp, armchair, shelf and side table, which are presented at the gallery through a sculptural display, to express, Dubois notes, ‘that the objects are both functional furniture and a study on shapes.’ Some of them, he explains, are a graphic decorative element when folded, acquiring their function once unfolded (he cites the screen and the side table as examples).

‘The beautiful aspect of this collaboration,’ says Reina, ‘was that we met half way in between the usual scale of Bernard’s projects in architecture and my usual scale of creation in leather goods, with furniture being right in between.’ For the leather goods designer, working on furniture meant focusing on purer lines and fewer details to achieve a more abstract, almost architectural aesthetic. ‘The production of forms has been interesting, especially regarding the influence of each practice and the scale of the objects they produce,’ says Dubois. §