He Pioneered Streetwear. Now, He Invented the Streetchair
You know Heron Preston. The guy came up DJing alongside the likes of Virgil Abloh and Matthew Williams before founding an eponymous fashion label at the forefront of streetwear’s global boom. But do you know L.E.D. Studio?
This is Preston’s lesser-known passion project, founded in 2023 while his eponymous brand was being run by New Guards Group. It’s a place for upcycled goods (L.E.D. stands for Less Environmentally Destructive) like tables made from reclaimed cardboard boxes, turntables repurposing vintage motors, and white tees woven of yarns sourced from waste fibers. Even though Preston’s now busy with his brand again, having bought back the rights to his label last year, L.E.D. is keeping busy.
L.E.D. Studio’s new collaboration with Rishi Assar, a multi-faceted designer whose projects range from the Marty Supreme table tennis tournament space to techy crossbody bags, sees the project return from a short hiatus to recommence its thrifty practice.
Preston and Assar sourced old aluminum New York road signs, cleaning, chopping, and then reassembling them together with metal rivets. The final furniture piece is, according to L.E.D. Studio, something between a “chair, step stool, nightstand, and table.”
The duo worked with New York City's Department of Transportation — Preston previously collaborated with the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) in 2016 to upcycle its discarded uniforms — getting ahold of disused school crossing, speed limit, and stop signs which are collaged together into multi-colored multi-purpose stools. After exhibiting the new work at Lichen NYC’s showroom, the stools are available now online for $1,000.
"Furniture is new [for me], so I wanted what was coming from me to feel new for everyone," Preston explained to Highsnobiety when he launched L.E.D. Studio. Sitting on disused road signs? That’s certainly new.
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