Shrimp earrings and clementine pumps—Gab Bois can turn anything into an accessory

Name: Gab Bois

Location: Montreal, Canada

Why you should know her: Bois transforms everyday objects into playful, thought-provoking works of art. From wearable food sculptures to witty visual puns—think a bra made of orange peel or a dress made entirely of Scrabble tiles—her creations invite viewers to see familiar objects they’d find in their junk drawer or snack cabinet in a brand-new light. Her talent for turning the banal into Instagram gold has earned her over 690k followers on the platform, collaborations with Balenciaga, Elf Cosmetics, and Fenty, to name a few, and most recently landed her the closing speaker spot at the 20th edition of Designyatra.

On her preferred job title: “I find that I’m not being a hundred per cent truthful if I call myself a photographer or a video director. I am a bit of those things, but I’m also a lot of other things. I’ve found the best way to describe what I do is to call myself a jack of all trades. I am, by no means, an expert in any field, but I dabble in a lot, which keeps things interesting.”

Her first viral DIY victory: “I had moved back into my parents’ house for my university degree, and I was taking photos from an old point-and-shoot camera. I had this retainer that I wasn’t wearing, and I had found these cute little knockoff Nike logos at a beach shop near my house. I decided to connect the logos to the retainer and take a photo, which I posted on Instagram, and then the algorithm did its thing. Bella Hadid reposted it and it got shared widely. Two years later, I got an email from Nike, and I thought they were going to send me a cease-and-desist. Turns out, they wanted to license the image to go on the women’s autumn/winter 2020 collection of T-shirts. A couple of years after that, Nike licensed the concept again to use it in their Women’s Euro 2022 film. This thing that was created out of pure boredom kept on taking more and more lives.”

She grew up on the internet: “I was a huge Tumblr kid. As a tween, I spent a lot of time on this site called Piczo; I’d print pages and pages on my mom’s printer till the ink ran out. I think spending time on these sites definitely played a huge part in training my eye from a young age.”

Why she loves playing with food: “Food is such an obsession of mine. It’s a recurring theme that I’ve always been drawn to and I’m super inspired by grocery stores and markets. My dad, who’s a painter, is a huge creative influence on me. When I was a child, he would tell stories with food items that I didn’t like or when I was being picky and arrange them in fun shapes. So, in my head, it kind of became okay to play with food—and it doesn’t mean that it’s wasteful. A lot of our food stuff doesn’t exist because it gets eaten after we shoot it, so I’ve been looking into food reproduction to see how we can keep some of these pieces. We released the shrimp earrings, the clementine pump, and the rhubarb purse inspired by fresh-food projects we’ve done in the past on our web shop and have a bunch more in the pipeline.”

The best discovery she’s made recently: “Last year, I got diagnosed with ADHD, which was amazing because it put a lot of feelings into words. Just being able to understand how my brain functions has been super helpful. I have the tendency to open TikTok and scroll or open my inbox first thing in the morning and then just be stressed. So, I’m trying to be more intentional about how I start my day. I used to skip breakfast, but now I eat a full protein breakfast with coffee, and after that I’m ready to dial in. In terms of other creative rituals, it’s more on a need basis. Sometimes, I’ll take the afternoon to myself to write down some ideas on paper to make space in my brain. Other than that, I’m a huge to-do-list girl and it has to be pen and paper—that’s the only way I can function.”

On working with Balenciaga: “I used to do a lot of brand-coded projects out of my own interest for a long time. I put out this Balenciaga-coded Croc heel in 2018, and then Balenciaga released theirs just a bit before or after. So, I was like, oh damn, we had convergent ideas. We started working together on digital campaigns not long after that. Now that Demna’s moved on from the brand, I don’t know what the future holds for our relationship, but I’ve really enjoyed working with them because it’s always such a fun and raw process.”

Her trickiest project yet: “We did a project for Back Market (a refurbished tech platform) where we created wearable designs from old tech. When we usually make objects, they’re beautiful and well preserved for a photo or video as a prop but not necessarily functional. These products had to look good while being safe for people to wear every day. It was super challenging from a technical standpoint because we had to ensure the products didn’t electrocute people, leak, or break, but it was so, so rewarding. We bulk-ordered about 200 flip and sidekick phones from eBay and Facebook marketplace and our studio was filled to the brim with old Blackberry, Sony Ericsson, and Motorola phones from the 2000s. It was like Christmas morning, unboxing all these phones in fun shapes that were designed in a way that was more unique than now. We ended up creating 75 items, all in-house.”

Her favourite corners of the internet: “I love Are.na and Pinterest. On Instagram, I love these accounts called @hidden.ny and @welcome.jpeg. They cover a lot of pop culture but also some more niche cultural things.”

Why real magic is still handmade: “I use AI for things that I’m not good at. I find it’s nice to help with my own shortcomings, but I am super wary of it becoming a crutch. Maybe it’ll come for my job, maybe not, but for now I feel there is some value and some power in doing it the hard way. It’s definitely a push and pull of how much of a shortcut I want to take and how much intention and process can add to a project or an idea. The analogue process of it—making these tangible props and shooting them—is such a big part of what we do that I definitely don’t want it to compromise that.”

How she sees her practice evolving: “I always compare my goal to having created something that’s as versatile as the Lego brand—where you can have everything from a flower bouquet to Star Wars blocks. They also just did a Don Julio alcohol collab. So that’s kind of the end goal—to develop a visual language that can transcend industries and be applied to enhance anything and everything.”