What's the Story Behind ... Christopher Tennant's Aquatic Cases

Filed under: Design, etc, News & Trends

Great design doesn't exist in a vacuum. So we're interviewing designers about the inspiration and motivation behind their most innovative pieces.

Anyone else might be satisfied with a successful career as a writer and magazine editor. But Christopher Tennant, author of The Official Filthy Rich Handbook and contributing editor at Vanity Fair, has a new, quirkier line on his resume: Dioramist. The longtime collector of curiosities launched his line of aquatic cases at Haus Interior, the New York City shop of designer and fellow taxidermy enthusiast Nina Freudenberger. "I love the dark themes within the cases juxtaposed with bright, vibrant colors in the background," Freudenberger told us. "They're a huge hit in the store. People can't get enough!"

Wondering exactly how these cases came to be? Us too. So we went straight to the source...

ShelterPop: What chic cases! What lead you to the medium?

Christopher Tennant: I've been a collector all my life. When I was a kid, it was shells, fossils, butterflies, coins, the usual boy stuff. About ten years ago, I started buying old taxidermy on the cheap and fixing it up myself. I'd been thinking about making a cased Victorian-style diorama and after falling down a rabbit hole on eBay searching for Megalodon teeth and then finding a perfect-sized wine crate, I gave it a try. After several weekends of trial and error, I had something resembling the boxes I'd been collecting, and friends told me I should make more.

ShelterPop: Why sea creatures?

Christopher Tennant: I'd never seen an underwater diorama before -- aside from cases with a single trophy fish -- and liked the fact that you could play with movement, light and the general mystery of the ocean. Almost all of the materials are from Long Island, where my girlfriend and I spend a lot of our time. The more exotic fish are from an island in the Phillipines. They have a small trade in marine species that get snared in fisherman's nets and would otherwise be thrown away. I'm recycling, basically.

ShelterPop: How do you balance your artwork with writing?

Christopher Tennant: The cases began as a weekend hobby and have mostly remained that, but it helps that all of my tools and materials are out in Long Island. During the week I focus on writing and editing and leave the fun stuff for my off hours.

ShelterPop: What challenges did you run into creating these?

Christopher Tennant: Too many to list, really. Weight was an issue with the first one, but only because I was using real sand for the base instead of papier mâché covered in sand. I definitely made it a lot harder for myself by not studying the techniques of taxidermy beforehand, but that's also what's made it interesting. With each case I learned a little bit about what not to do. The biggest challenge and source of anxiety comes at the end. After you seal a case under glass, there's no turning back.

ShelterPop: I'm guessing you have some fantastic stories about building dioramas a kid.

Christopher Tennant: Not too many, though I've always been fascinated by them. My diorama-building experience was mostly confined to shoeboxes, though I did make a pilgrim scene once with little green trees and a toothpick cabin. Wish I still had it.

ShelterPop: What's next? Will we see bigger aquatic cases? Jungle cases? Downtown NYC cases?

Since completing this first series I've started building both larger and smaller cases from scratch and collecting more specimens, but I've been thinking about the desert -- I have a stuffed armadillo hanging around in need of a home.

We also asked both Tennant and Freudenberger if we could expect a possible collaboration -- after all, wouldn't her glamorous, moody interiors look exquisite in diorama form? "That would be a dream. I would love nothing more," she said. And Tennant is on the same page, admitting that he's thought this through and would use the designer's brown and cream zig-zag pattern.

Those pilgrims from his grade school diorama would be jealous. And yes, so are we. Who wouldn't want to live in such a stunning space?

Looking for more interviews? Check out:
Q&A With ELLE DÉCOR's Michael Boodro
Q&A With Sir James Dyson
West Elm and PATCH NYC Come Together

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