Something Feels Different
Taking a leaf from the fashion industry, Mexico City's Azotea offers a new narrative for design — centered around limited drops and cultural relevance
Photos and Text by David Eardley
Illustrations by Ally Zhu
If there’s one shift that characterizes retail over the past decade, it’s the rise of the “drop".
This strategy of releasing product in limited qualities and short sales windows is now employed by many popular brands today, most notably in fashion. The draw is obvious: drops conserve product, build anticipation, and create uniquely personal sales opportunities.
There's something subtly profound at play when it comes to the rise of the drop: a shift in how we think about our purchases. The drop complexifies our role as consumers, requiring more critical thought about what and when we buy. A drop item, not part of an ongoing catalog, necessitates more intentional decisions.
Questions arise: do we need/want it? Will we want it when it's finally available? Are we ready to plan our day to secure one? Each question offers an opportunity for the consumer to engage more deeply with their buying habits.
While it may just feel like hype culture, the drop structure itself may actually foster change. So, one might wonder, could the drop help catalyze a shift towards a more sustainable, consumer-conscious production model in the furniture world? And what else might happen from an increased interest in doing everything a little (or a lot) differently?
I’ve been wanting to interview Esteban Caicedo, founder of Azotea, a Mexico City-based furniture brand that follows a drop system for releasing their pieces, ever since we crossed paths in-person a few months ago. Azotea is known across the city for their eclectic-yet-cohesive portfolio of refurbished and new artisanal design, which blends maker traditions from Caicedo’s native Colombia, rich Mexican history, and the influential African diaspora. The pieces are available in limited batches and during short sale windows, encouraging their clients to bring more mindfulness to their purchase decisions.
A few weeks ago, I cycled to meet Esteban at the Azotea showroom and factory, where he gave me a tour before we delved into discussing the brand's story and his own personal narrative, inextricable from the brand itself.
His story begins, as it does for many of us, with childhood fascination. “I always loved design, ever since I was a little kid,” he reminisced. “I was into clothing mostly, playing with fabrics like a kid starts playing a sport or playing an instrument—you don’t really know what you’re doing, just getting familiar with things and developing certain abilities as time goes by.”
But, as with many of us as well, Esteban’s skill set is complex and multi-faceted, and much of his early adulthood was spent working as an actor. Acting itself isn’t actually that different from designing furniture: creating experiences, manipulating space, revisiting an idea and iterating upon it. It shaped his approach to furniture design, offering a different take in the industry.
As time went on, Esteban found himself experimenting with furniture restoration as a way to pass the time between acting gigs. This side venture led to larger scale restorations, and eventually the birth of Azotea, growing beyond the limits of his auto-didactic experience into a full-fledged production and showroom after seeking out the expertise of creators and artisans with expertise in various practices.
Azotea’s multi-level space consists of a factory/studio on top and a showroom that unfolds below—a large, light-filled expanse juxtaposing simple industrial surroundings with a vibrant array of completed and in-progress pieces.
For Esteban, the team is what makes it all work. “Gualberto and Saúl, our head upholsterers, have been my teachers these two years and everything I’ve learned up to this point was from them along with Raul and his son Christian, our woodworking experts.”
There’s something to be said for leaning into this model: a world in which design is viewed as an ecosystem rather than the sole work of a handful of iconoclasts. An ecosystem where each craftsman contributes unique skills and expertise, adding richness to the final product.
Acknowledgement was a through-line in our conversation that day: acknowledgement of the backstory, the contributors, the limits of old-school thinking, and, perhaps most importantly, the cultural references that Esteban infuses into his work. Azotea’s identity is a reflection: a portrait of history and the interconnectedness of aesthetic landscapes, cultural tradition, and the enduring influence of diaspora.
“I’ve been investigating my roots and experiences, putting them into the sketches and the works that we create. I'm Afro-Colombian and I've been trying to merge references from Africa, Colombia, and from Mexican cultures as much as I can. When I was doing theater, I was working a lot in Afro-Mexican communities in Mexico and that was the first time I could relate myself to the diaspora far away from my country,” Esteban shared.
This keen interest in intersectionality is evident in the Azotea showroom: low, sloping sofas sit next to abstract carved wooden chairs, each piece an embodiment of cultural touchpoints.
The resulting impression is that Azotea is creating a bold new take on design in Mexico and, on a much larger scale, Central and South America: one that mixes contemporary thinking with a more holistic perspective than the all-too-often Eurocentric and trend-beholden focus of much of the current landscape. This idea is echoed in Azotea’s drop model, which emphasizes the heirloom nature of quality furniture over ease of access or an overwhelming interest in convenience.
Reflecting on our conversation, I thought about how funny it is that furniture is often viewed as this apolitical thing when, at the end of the day, what is more morally and politically charged than the objects with which we spend our lives? As much as I love the cutesy-ness of so much of the drippy, squiggly furniture revival, there’s something missing in many of the pieces and brands I encounter: an interest in creating a different (and ideally better) world.
This isn’t to place Azotea on some sort of pedestal—the question of “upscale” furniture itself still persists—but rather to point out that we all have a choice to make when we create or engage with design: do we accept the current system, or do we challenge it, even if in the smallest of ways?
Observing the evolution and impact of Azotea, I can’t help but feel curious and optimistic about what is to come. It's an intriguing case study on how innovation in design can drive a shift towards more sustainable and socially conscious production models. The world is watching, and hopefully, learning.