The holiday season is as much about delight, as deceit. The presents we give/get rarely live up to the pomp of their packaging. To resolve this annual angst, the clever art-meets-fashion concept brand, Slow and Steady Wins the Race, has turned the act of giving into the gift itself. Rolling art and anticipation into one, “Presents” is an ephemeral collection of artist-designed nesting boxes that celebrate the experience and excitement of giving and receiving. What lies inside the boxes is an afterthought—the presentation is the present itself. (Can you think of a more suitable endnote to the worst financial year in decades?) Inhabiting the Brachfeld gallery in Paris for the month of the December, ‘Presents’ is an art show/pop-up shop in synch with the brand’s deconstructionist design manifesto. Creating collections like chapters in a living archive, Slow and Stead Wins the Race focuses on sartorial notions (evening), social critiques (luxe?) categories (white t-shirt) or design fundamentals (seams). Each mini-range of six to eight pieces is numbered and indexed for future reference like files in a library. In keeping with the brand’s measured and meticulous maturation process, the concept behind ‘Presents’ has been brewing in the pot for a while. “One year my sculpture professor in college told us about a gift experience he created for his wife,” says Slow and Steady Wins the Race founder, Mary Ping, who graduated from Vassar in 2000. “He created a nesting box of trinkets from the dollar store and she spent thirty minutes unwrapping each surprise within a surprise.”

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