KAAREM and Marou Chocolate Tamarind Coconut Chocolate Bar

KAAREM and Marou Chocolate Tamarind Coconut Chocolate Bar

Client: KAAREM / Marou Chocolate
Design Company: Rice
Creative Direction: Joshua Breidenbach
Collaborating Creative Direction: Chuong Pham
Design: Joshua Breidenbach
Production: Anna Dinh, Mai Thi Thao
Paper: Neenah, Teton Felt
Country: Vietnam

For their fifth anniversary, KAAREM, the Saigon / New York based design and production studio, collaborated with Marou Chocolate, Vietnam’s premier pod-to-bar chocolate maker, to create a limited chocolate bar that brings together incredible flavors from Vietnam. Marou developed a chocolate highlighting in-season tamarind; the custom bar delicately balances the tart fruitiness of tamarind with creamy Bến Tre coconut milk.

We sought to create a design which very simply represented the collaboration: exquisite handcraft, layering, draping, and pure forms. We invited Chuong Pham, Creative Director of KAAREM, to incorporate the studio’s pattern-making techniques into a wrapping that would have no tape or glue —only intricate cutting and folding. With no shortcuts, the team manipulated the paper to reduce seams and create dimension in its final form: a signature Kaarem triangle dress design.