What started with an obsession with creating Lilliputian midcentury television sets has evolved into the crafting of miniature midcentury designs, including chaises longues, Egg chairs, corkscrew coffee tables, bar carts, cocktails (filled with real booze), cigarettes (filled with real tobacco), and even tiny replicas of Surface magazines. Using discarded materials such as cardboard from the backs of legal pads and Christmas light cords, Mimi Hannon, who leads the copy department at Surface, was inspired after deciding it might be cool to outfit an aquarium with household scenes, with the fish swimming around a midcentury living room instead of the bottom of the sea. She has yet to make her pieces waterproof, but remains an advocate of ’50s and ’60s-era design, saying that, “They got it right, and we’ve been getting it wrong ever since.” But don’t expect to see any Mad Men characters inhabiting her retro settings. “People would ruin it, like they do everything else,” she says. Here, a few of her dollhouse-scale environments.
Our Copy Editor Makes Really Amazing Mini Furniture
She crafts midcentury pieces from household trash, and even fills tiny cocktails with real booze.
Nate Storey May 08, 2018
A re-creation of Arne Jacobsen’s Egg chair is made out of one of the bottom lobes of a soda bottle and comes adorned with a chewing-gum pillow.
Surface’s Matías Duarte issue rests on a felt chaise longue.
Blu-Tack was used to make the green sofa.
The Flos-inspired standing lamp is metal, with a chrome-painted plastic grape forming the shade. The coffee table was made from a shard of safety glass. Surface issues on display: Kanye West, Solange Knowles, Rossana Orlandi.
Most of the cocktails contain real booze (the ice is made of bits of plastic). From left: a martini, a gin and tonic, a Tom Collins, a Manhattan, and a margarita.
Surface’s Kanye West issue on a coffee table with mixed drinks and a cigarette rolled with real tobacco. (The Thom Browne issue is visible in the background.)
