Gohar World Beefs Up
Nadia and Laila Gohar are known for their surrealist interpretations of everyday housewares—everything from aprons to dish gloves. So who better to model their brand of elegant domesticity than a few professional bodybuilders?
It’s a frigid November morning in Manhattan, all gray skies and dour expressions out on the sidewalk, but here, inside Gohar World—or, at least, the downtown studio where the Gohar sisters Laila and Nadia transfigure their most demented dreams into reality—everything is perfect. The whimsical selection of handsewn table cloths? Chic. The mother-of-pearl dining utensils, delicately carved by a collective of Vietnamese artisans? Iridescent. And the professional bodybuilders? Lubricated, and hungry.
The day’s models, Maxx Charles and JB, woke up before the crack of dawn to get in a workout at Long Island’s Bev Francis Powerhouse Gym, their home away from home, before hopping on the train for a two-hour ride into the city. As such, they neglected to eat breakfast. Which is all fine and good, as they are professionals trained in the modern art of finding their angles. But JB, the younger, whose biceps seem to possess their own biceps, has a competition he’s been training extra hard for in a few weeks, and his gas tank is dangerously low. His body requires calories—and soon.The pair had arrived to model a line of kitchen and home goods plucked from the Gohar World cinematic universe. Metallic silver aprons constructed from crinkly polyvinyl siloxane. Rubber dish gloves affixed with Battenberg lace at the cuffs. Especially tempting—and perhaps even cruel—is the ribbon-trimmed Baguette Bag, which happens to be stuffed with a fresh piece of bread from Frenchette Bakery. JB notes the presence of the carbohydrate and soldiers onward, hitting his poses.
There’s a funny, almost surrealist quality to the Gohars’s creations: Dadaism in miniature. Like most working artists, the Gohars aren’t fond of talking about what inspires them or offering much in terms of explanation, especially when it concerns something like wax tea candles designed to resemble fried chicken. The work is the work. But their creative output is compelling in that it walks a delicate line, embracing the absurdity of luxury while retaining the care and attention to craft. In that, Gohar World is a prismatic refraction of them: understated, meticulous, yet a little bit silly, comfortable with contradiction and especially its progeny, mischief.The sisters, who grew up in Cairo and were born a year apart, split studio duties in a way that is for the most part harmonious. Laila, the elder, is the front-facing multihyphenate creative with a visual eye for presentation. (In a profile, it was noted that Drake once announced her as “the Björk of food” at a dinner hosted by Nike. “The whole thing was kind of a lot,” she says of that moment.) Nadia, meanwhile, works more on the production side and is a global sourcing expert. (“I leave a lot of voice messages on WhatsApp.”) She also possesses a superpower essential to the business that her sister does not: “She writes everything down,” says Laila.
“We both kind of have different roles within Gohar World,” adds Nadia, huddled on an antique couch with her sister. “And then design is the one place that we can meet.”Lately, the Gohars have been working with materials that wink at their heritage, like Shahi (“In English, we call it opaline, but we made that up,” says Laila), which is a striped cloth that they used for the Baguette Bag. And they’ve also borrowed inspiration from the traditional galabeya, a garment associated with menswear. The sisters cut it up for tablecloths.I ask them if using masculine fabrics for kitchenware was perhaps a commentary on domestic gender roles—a question that I feel a late-onset embarrassment for asking as it leaves my mouth in real-time.“There is a mix between masculine feminine in our work, but I don’t think it’s to do with roles,” says Nadia, kindly. “I think it’s more to do with combining fun elements in the different pieces.” Mostly, the Gohars tend to err on the side of funny. “I sort of enjoy taking things out of the traditional context,” adds Laila.Hence the apron-wearing bodybuilders, who are famished. (There was a slight latent anxiety that the kitchen gloves would not fit the guys, but God is good!)As the photo shoot winds to a close, the studio’s doorbell rings. The Doordash order has arrived, complete with Maxx and JB’s late breakfast: plain bagels (three for Maxx), no cream cheese, and black coffee.JB removes his jewelry, slips out of his silver apron and gloves, and changes into sweats before lowering himself to sit at a small table. He rips a bagel in half along the vertical axis, dunks it in his coffee, and gulps it down like a python swallowing a deer. He closes his eyes, and an indulgent smile spreads across his face. It may be gloomy outside, but here, inside Gohar World, things are again perfect, at least for the moment.
SSENSE.
