LA MUERTE TIENE PERMISO arose from a desire to share a contemporary Mexican design aesthetic in a European context. Travelling through the design capitals of Europe, architect and designer Omar Ortiz Franco found a range of international influences, yet Mexico – World Design Capital in 2018 – was nowhere to be seen.
Omar created La Muerte Tiene Permiso* to celebrate the unique materials and historic traditions of his country with a contemporary finish. His design inspiration comes from the vernacular materials and crafts traditions from around Mexico, histories and folk stories, and Mexican cinema and photography. The collection is equally informed by Omar’s architectural design aesthetic, which focuses on clean lines and attention to materials, and his desire to explore what it means to dwell in a home.
We work in partnership with traditional workshops around the country, many of which have been running for generations. Faced with the global environmental crisis, we have taken solace in the ways in which communities across Mexico have for generations created useful objects with natural materials they find around them, and which at the end of the item’s useful life can help it to degrade back into the earth. We are proud to be a part of that tradition and believe that an object made with love, thought and knowledge of technique can be reflected in objects that change our way to consume.