WIN is a wine bar in Kyiv, and the commission began with the least glamorous object in any Ukrainian venue: the “куточок споживача” — the consumer-information corner that every business is required by law to display, licences and complaint book and all.
Instead of the usual plastic sleeve by the door, WIN’s was built as a full leather wall panel in the shape of an apron: document pockets sized to their paperwork, a card-slot organiser, a branded medallion and a wine-cork holder, mounted straight to the bare brick on brass grommets. A dull requirement turned into a quiet piece of the room.
The same hand and the same hide then went onto the floor. A run of check presenters — the folders a guest’s bill arrives in — foldover leather closed on a strap and stud, each embossed with the bar’s mark and stamped with its table number. Made to be handled hundreds of times a week and to only look better for it.
