My selection reflects my interest and frequent participation in the Italian side of things. Every single one! They are functional objects but they also have a story behind them, they have some kind of witty transformation of ideas that are not essentially related to the functions they perform. This is not so much form follows function as form follows fiction, which is basically my outlook.
Black wool jacket Strategic Business Unit SBU is a very special little shop in Rome. It’s full of clothes that I want to buy, and I often do. Yes, it’s fashion, but it’s characterful, easy to wear and unlike anything else you can buy in Rome, so it’s a welcome break from the big international brands. I like SBU’s independent spirit, its great quality and its great cut. It’s always a pleasure to shop there. I think they’re a kind of precious secret.
credit Strategic Business Unit
Broken plates Paola Navone for
Richard Ginori 1735 Ginori is a very prestigious porcelain company based near Florence with a great history. Paola Navone has been doing wonderful things for them. These plates are a very wise, telling and creative response to updating Ginori. The staples, which you see in repaired museum pieces, are just printed on the plates.
credit Richard Ginori 1735
Cavour desk Carlo Mollino for Zanotta This desk summarises exactly why I like Mollino. There’s a sense of flight in the body’s lightness, intelligence of structure, cantilevering … It’s all there in this piece, which I think is great. Designed in 1949, it is still available. It maintains an aspirational level of design even though it’s so old. Compare it with anything else in the market and I think it’s up there with the best.
credit Zanotta
Joe chair Gionatan De Pas, Donato D’Urbino and Paolo Lomazzi for Poltronova I’m going to buy one of these for my house in Italy. I think they are one of the most witty, comfortable pieces of the 1960s and it will go very well in the country setting. A bit of Italian Americana made by, again, a very special company with Florentine connections.
credit Poltronova
Faretto Doppio lamp Nigel Coates for Slamp This will launch this year for Slamp, where I’m art director and prolific designer. I’m particularly fond of this one. It has a kind of gravitas as an object, but also a controlled functionality. Faretto means “little spot”. It uses a cone of mirrored crystal at the centre and then a deliberate leakage of light onto the horizontal acrylic discs. So it has got a sculptural, three-dimensional quality as well as directing the light downwards.
credit Slamp
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