Sugatsune now offers a complete range of architectural hardware in a luxurious black finish
It’s a complaint we’ve heard countless times from interior designers over the years. You might call it the ‘tyranny of chrome’ complaint. To understand it, look around your home or your office. Look at the door handles and hinges, the drawer slides and pulls, the locks and more.
What do you spot that a lot of them have in common? It’s odds on that the majority share a chrome or metallic finish, probably silver in colour, possibly golden or brass.
Once you notice it, it’s one of those things you can’t help but spot everywhere. And for many an interior architect, it’s a constant frustration.
Why do so many architectural components come in the same finish? One, it’s easy. With most such components manufactured from stainless steel or various aluminium alloys, chromatic silver is their natural colour.
Two, there’s a widespread point of view that it doesn’t really matter too much. Hinges, knobs, brackets – they’re hardly the focal point of a room’s design, are they? Many end up being hidden from sight inside cabinets, anyway. They’re functional items, there to do a job attaching or holding together different fixtures of fittings, or facilitating motion. Why go to any trouble over how they look?
Yet we know, from years of experience, that this is an attitude that really rubs designers up the wrong way. When you are trying to deliver a particular aesthetic, every little detail counts. Generations of architects have had to begrudgingly compromise their vision by accepting components in colurs and finishes that just don’t fit. They had no choice.
But we decided enough was enough. Our motto has always been, when it comes to outstanding design, form matters as much as function. To stay true to our principles, we recognised the need to offer an alternative to the tyranny of chrome.
The result? The Sugatsune Black Series. A ‘greatest hits’ collection of our leading architectural hardware products, all finished in a captivating and, above all, consistent black.
No Shades of Grey
Consistency is key to the thinking behind the Black Series. It’s not that there have never been components in colours and finishes other than gold-silver chrome. They are readily available on the market, in fact.
The problem is that, up until now, no manufacturer has offered a complete range in alternative colours. You might source a set of black pulls and handles from one supplier, black-coated concealed hinges from another, hooks and mounting racks from another still. But across all of them, the shade of black is invariably inconsistent, the deepest pitch in one case, fading towards the perimeters of grey in another.
As we mentioned, the small details matter to designers. A lack of consistency in shades of finishes is enough to drive them to distraction. It’s a sign of imperfection.
The Black Series banishes those concerns. From concealed hinges to shelf organizers, handles to slide rails, cable grommets to hooks, you can trust every component to share the same rich, sumptuous shade for an impeccable finish. And not forgetting, of course, that you can continue to trust our uncompromising commitment to build quality, durability and performance. It’s a different look, but the same old premium Sugatsune standards.
From an aesthetic perspective, black is also a timeless, tasteful classic. In the world of fashion, it’s known as the faithful fallback that ‘goes with everything’. When you dig into the physics, black is technically considered a ‘shade’ rather than a colour, because it is actually detected as the absence of reflected light in the coloured, visible wavelengths. The theory is that black’s neutrality helps to enhance and balance the effect of other colours. It is certainly a natural match for darker, earthier tones, for example those created by extensive use of hardwoods, or when the aim is to create more of a period aesthetic.
Whatever your design vision, it’s comforting to know that now, at last, you can have little black numbers all over any interior, playing their part in achieving the perfect aesthetic harmony. Get in touch with the Sugatsune UK sales team to find out more, and to request a catalogue.
