Our story
Memento mori for the modern wardrobe.
A wearable cabinet of old-master engravings of beauty and mortality. We take the rose beside the skull and present each as a plate in a collection.
The thesis
Every beautiful thing carries a warning.
The old engravers knew it. They drew the rose beside the skull, the knight above the grave, the hand reaching for the forbidden fruit. Beauty and death on the same plate. They called it memento mori: remember you will die. So wear the time you have well.
Each garment is a plate from a private collection. A butterfly caught in a wreath. Cards fanned across tattooed hands. A jeweled cross. The refined serif and the blood-red rose hold the frame. The engraving is the specimen inside.
Two friends, a set of images
Printed small once. Brought back the way it was meant to be seen.
Temptation started as two friends and a set of these images, printed small and lost in a feed. The art was always real. What it never had was a room to be seen in. So we built one. Not a shop. A gallery that happens to sell, where every release is a numbered chapter with a story, and a purchase is joining a collection rather than grabbing a one-off.
Sacred and profane
VanitasThe old painters’ word for beauty that knows it ends.
The whole idea lives in one tension: virtue and vice, the butterfly and the skull, the cross and the gamble. Rest on the bloom and it holds. Look closer and the other face is always there. That is the point of the work, and the reason it is worth wearing.
Hover to see the other faceA plate, not a print.
The art comes first. The garment is the frame that carries it. Title, medium, chapter, year, set like a museum caption.
A chapter, not a restock.
Releases are numbered chapters with a story. They open, they close, they are kept in the archive. Scarcity by design, never by trick.
A warning, not a slogan.
Remember you will die. Wear it well. The engravings are reminders you can put on, for people who want what they wear to mean something.