Designer Maggie Pei launched her second collection, Still Hours, this past Spring. The work of Colony designers is often thought provoking and Still Hours is no exception. Pei's iteration and design process inspired Madeleine to investigate the concepts of reflection and perception in a personal essay published in Wrong House's second issue, excerpted below:

"Still Hours developed from the French phrase je me regarde dans le miroir. "I look at myself in the mirror." In English, we generally phrase this differently, dropping the reflexive: I look into the mirror.

Pei's understanding of the mirror is expansive—it isn't just an object, but a liminal space. Both an ornament in its own right and instrument for introspection, her piece Fluted Chambre becomes a poetic threshold where I—standing before it—can exist as both subject and image. I do not just look at the mirror, I look at myself. What I realized in working with Pei was that I was not used to experiencing my reflection as its own actor—until then, it had only been a conduit for understanding the composition others saw of me."

Read the full essay here in Wrong House.