Aaron Bondaroff, also known as A-ron The Downtown Don, has produced legendary gatherings, designs, and creative direction that have received a tremendous amount of international recognition, earning him a permanent place in the New York City timeline. Bondaroff is the Co-Founder and Co-Creative Director of O.H.W.O.W. as well as the Founder of the NYC based aNYthing brand. Aaron recently provided a first glimpse at the OHWOW pop-up store inside the New York Minute exhibition that opened last week in Rome. The exhibition and store were designed by another massive name in design, Rafael de Cardenas. If you’ve never heard tell of de Cardenas, you need to check out this interview where he talks at length about his involvement with the O.H.W.O.W. Pop-Up Store.
Regarding the challenges he faced with this project, de Cardenas responded: “When you’ve been designing for a while, you come to each new project with a bag of tricks. There are ideas you like, that you know tend to work for you. O.H.W.O.W. was kind of like a playground. I got to take my favourite ideas out for a run—like, the whole black and white motif, for example. I love that contrast. But in a way, my approach to design operates as its own control. I’m very invested in the way spaces are experienced. So that leads to things like the pattern on the O.H.W.O.W. floors suggesting pathways through the galleries.”
