the studio program: one artist a year

One artist, one year, one collection meant to last. Here is how the studio works.

Most collaborations move fast. An artist signs on, a short run sells out, and a few months later it is gone. We wanted to try the opposite. The studio is our way of working with one artist a year, slowly, on a small collection that is built to stay in the line rather than disappear.

why one a year

Working with a single artist over a full year gives the work room to be considered. There is time to get a color right, to choose where it belongs across the chair, towel, and umbrella, and to make something that still feels at home a year or two later. A collection made to stay has to clear a higher bar than a collection made to sell out. That is the bar we are aiming for.

One a year is also a constraint we put on ourselves on purpose. It means we cannot lean on volume or novelty to make a release feel like an event. The work has to carry it. A year is long enough to live with a color through different light and seasons, to put a sample chair in the back of the car and actually use it, and to find out whether the thing still feels right in month ten. Most collaborations never get that test. The ones that skip it are the ones that look dated the moment the season turns.

It also keeps the focus honest. One artist at a time means we are not chasing a calendar of releases. We are paying attention to one body of work, and the people who own it are not left holding something that quietly vanished from the site.

the founding artist

The studio begins with Christine Barraco, a Newport Beach creator whose coastal-neutral eye shaped the first collection. Her work centers on the Coastal Rose colorway, a soft, warm rose that reads as calm rather than loud, the kind of color that sits comfortably next to the rest of the SUN'Y line.

Coastal Rose was chosen to belong, not to stand out on a shelf. It sits in the same family as our Nautical Navy, Sea Green, and Seashell White, so a studio piece does not clash with the chair you already own; it reads like another member of the same set. That is the test a studio color has to pass. It should look like it was always going to be there, not like a limited run bolted onto the line for a season.

She also pushed for a change to the full pouch. The existing pouches, she felt, leaned too tactical, and she wanted something that fit the way a beach day actually looks and feels. The full pouch clips to the chair's MOLLE back and holds the towel plus your essentials, and her input helped soften how it carries and sits on the chair. It is a small change, but it is the kind of detail the one-a-year pace is built to catch: the sort of thing you only notice when you have lived with the gear long enough to be bothered by it.

made to stay

The point of the studio is permanence, not scarcity. A studio collection joins the catalog and stays there, so the thing you bring to the beach this year is the same thing you can replace or add to later. That is a quieter way to release a collection, and it fits how we think about gear in general: made well, kept around, used for years.

It also changes what owning a piece means. A made-to-stay collection is something you can build on a season at a time, matching a towel to the chair next year, knowing the color will still be there. Nothing about it is meant to make you hurry. The whole idea runs against the way most limited collaborations work, and that is the point.

More of Christine's story, in her own words, is coming as the first collection settles in. For now, you can see how the pieces fit together in the kit, or read more from the studio.