Home Gym Gear Gleams on HIGASHIFUSHIMI’s New Gridded Organizer
Most standard home gym setups aren’t going to be wining interior design awards anytime soon. It is what it is: functional equipment that you probably just hide away in your garage, back room, or some other place that’s out of view from your dinner party guests. But what happens when you live in a small space or you’re really set on working out in your air-conditioned living room? In these cases, something a little more aesthetically pleasing than an old-school Bowflex or a stack of rubber weights might be in order.
If you’re a relative workout minimalist or you don’t need a host of heavy-duty home machinery to stay in shape, a gleaming new series called the “Athletic x Luxury Gym Collection” might give you a little visual inspiration to organize your gear.
Just about any object can look artful when it’s displayed with care, and these gridded metallic displays even extend that flattery to yoga balls, barbells, mats, tennis rackets, and your beat-up gym sneakers. Created by Momoko Higashifushimi, the Japan-born, New York-based designer behind HIGASHIFUSHIMI, the Athletic x Luxury Gym Collection comes in three formats: the “Super Yoga Grid,” the “Super Sports Grid,” and the “Power Mirror.”
“Why do athletic products often look messy and disorganized in the home?” Momoko asks. “Why can’t we have our daily products artistically stored? How can we truly feel well, healthy, and good about ourselves?”
This collection seeks to answer those questions with the kind of looks and quality that are sure to pass muster with discerning design enthusiasts. The first grid comes in pleasing tones of gold and silver, with rearrangeable pegs holding up standard yoga equipment. The second is a little more colorful in vivid blue and fuchsia, stretching higher up the wall for larger gear like surfboards, skateboards, and perhaps even a bicycle. The oversized mirror is designed to lean against a wall, allowing you to keep an eye on your form while following a workout video on your iPad (which itself can be mounted directly on the mirror’s surface).
HIGASHIFUSHIMI’s design ethos is all about balance. As the designer herself puts it, her creations celebrate all things “old yet beautiful, athletic yet luxurious, artistic yet functional, chic yet eccentric, discipline yet kind, bold yet elegant, feminine yet masculine, and perfectly imperfect.” Focusing on a high level of craftsmanship, Momoko works with a network of fabricators based in the United States to hand-assemble and finish each piece, including the waxed brass brackets.
The Athletic x Luxury Gym Collection probably won’t replace all the large equipment you use at a commercial gym, but it’s a nice way to organize a collection of small home equipment, and it might even help you strip your stuff down to the essentials just so you can fit it all on the wall. Industrial design and athletics don’t intersect in this way very often, and HIGASHIFUSHIMI’s approach is worthy of a visible place in a highly-trafficked area of the home. Not a big fan of yoga…or sweating? Use the grid to display whatever you like, from framed images to objets d’art.
All photos by James Shanks
