Born into the Architecture and Interior Design industry in the Hawaiian Islands, founder of SUMO, Nalani Sato developed an innate appreciation for the distinctive concoction of architectural styles present within the Hawaiian Islands early on. She later traveled the world, studied Fine Arts and returned home to Hawaii. She juggled regular informal modeling at Neiman Marcus, Chanel and Christian Dior, painting and more school between what started as a part-time gig at Architectural Surfaces, Inc., her Dad's business established in Honolulu in 1984. She started at the very bottom: sample organization. That is how she learned every single product, it's look, use and quality. Her job description later included administrative duties like customer service, placing orders, etc. as well as visual merchandising.
She is built to be what she is. Involved in art intersections, Nalani bridges the divide between
Art Design
As seen in Architectural Digest's Open Door, our grasscloth collages start from a single shape cut by hand from a roll of wallcovering. The intention behind this collection is to create sustainable, eco-friendly artwork using Mid Century and Brutalist architecture-inspired shapes and materials from our Grasscloth Collection with references to graffiti writing.
Process
Every design starts with a meeting between designer and artist. Once a color and material palette is selected, the artist creates a mock up of materials showing how the textures and colors will work together. The mock up does not indicate the final product and this is why...Each piece starts with a single shape cut by hand from a single roll. The proceeding shapes are continuations of those previously cut shapes and scraps and so on. The process is very organic, yet consistently adheres to the bold shapes of Brutalist and Mid Century architecture and playful nature of graffiti writing. All with minimal waste.
