Founded in 2016 as the design arm of manufacturer Ghidini Giuseppe Bosco, the brand has garnered global acclaim for its distinctive collections that blend traditional craftsmanship with contemporary aesthetics. Ghidini1961 also showcased its latest offerings at this year’s Salone del Mobile in Milan, emphasizing metal die-casting with a focus on the use of fine materials, impeccable detail and timeless elegance. Continuing to set the standard for design, the brand tasked Zupanc to create the Gioiello collection of mirrors.

“Inspired by the infinite possibilities of a brass sphere as a single building block, these mirrors are designed to create a collection of objects and tell their story through repetition and play. The spheres are polished to perfection to resemble precious jewellery,” shares Zupanc.

This collaboration remains all the more special given the brand and designer’s history of working together. Giuseppe Ghidini, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, reveals, “Our collaboration dates back to 2016 and coincides with the year of our brand’s foundation. She was one of the first designers involved in the project to design objects and then furniture, and the partnership has continued over the years.”

The collection includes mirrors in various shapes—rectangular, round, inverted teardrop and more—as well as finishes like chrome, deep black, polished and burnished brass. “By aligning the spheres into numerous shapes, we form versatile frames without the need of new moulds or tools for their production. The mirrors are elegantly rich in their appearance due to their simplicity,” adds Zupanc.

The post Brass ornaments Ghidini1961 mirrors in this new collaboration appeared first on Architectural Digest India.

Friedman’s collection, available exclusively via London-based platform Abask, wasn’t always on his bingo card. “I’d been working with Abask on curating the ‘smalls’ for my home-restoration project in Long Island and some of the very first objects I chose for the wet bar were Lobmeyr’s sensational Series B glasses. During a design meeting, the Abask team suggested that we reach out to Leonid and Louise Rath [the owner of Lobmeyr and his artist sister, both part of the sixth Lobmeyr generation] and propose a collaboration that celebrated my other home in Texas, a place where I find constant creative inspiration,” says Friedman. As it happened, the Raths were equally inspired.

Each glass in the collection is a hand-painted work of art created by the glass company’s master artisans in its Viennese workshop. Each piece expresses a unique facet of Marfa’s Western spirit: One glass features a cowboy mid-rodeo, another depicts a band of cacti, while a third is emblazoned with the area’s mesmerizing cloud formations. “Marfa is such a fascinating landscape, and for me and the artisans at Lobmeyr, it is an interesting and fun challenge to draw inspiration from things that aren’t outside our own front door. We are excited to share our craftspeople’s work with new audiences through this collaboration with Douglas,” Leonid says.

The post Lobmeyr x Douglas Friedman glassware collection is an ode to the Texan way of life appeared first on Architectural Digest India.

The outcome of Jaipur Rugs’ three recent collaborations has pushed the envelope, once again, in the world of floor decor. To start, the collection of rugs by Chanel’s Vimar 1991 is imbued with the same sense of luxury that is synonymous with the fashion maison’s boucle jacket for its tweed dress. Part of Chanel’s conglomerate of specialist craft ateliers that creates its iconic tweed jackets, Vimar has always been known for its luxury fashion yarns. This collaboration marks its first collection of carpets—a delicious amalgam of fashion fabrics and interior design pieces. The luxury yarns have been exclusively created for Jaipur Rugs in Vimar’s production units in Italy and hand-knotted in Rajasthan by local artisans using the Indo-Nepali method (where each knot is tied line-by-line with a rod).

East and West come together almost inseparably as a cohesive whole in these designs. Such seamlessness could not have been achieved without a deep understanding of the cultural heritage embedded in the brand. “We value collaborators who are eager to explore new materials, techniques, and designs that push the boundaries of traditional rug-making, and who also appreciate the intricate work and heritage of our hand-knotted rugs,” says Yogesh Chaudhary, director, of Jaipur Rugs.

The same principle but a different design vocabulary guides the Façade collection of carpets designed by AMDL Circle, an architectural studio founded in Milan by Michele De Lucchi. Façade delves into the multiple functionalities of carpets. Each carpet is reminiscent of membranes set free from spatial constraints and hence becomes usable even as a tapestry or dividing curtain.

Chaudhary underlines that even as Jaipur Rugs revives ancient weaving techniques that have been forgotten over time, the brand is also determined to embrace hybrid weaving techniques that combine traditional methods with modern ones to offer durability and intricacy. The carpets in the Zig Zag collection, too, advocate the powers of such obverse themes through a complex interplay of bold, irre­gular, black volumes set against pristine white negative spaces—all held together by a slender thread of rich colour. Inspired by the Bauhaus movement—which has remained the predominant influence on DAAA Haus’s design ethos—the stark contrast of black and white, in zigzag patterns, represents the dichotomy of our world and our journey through it.

The contemporary abstraction in all the designs, which were conceptualized in parts of Europe, coupled with the traditional artistry of weavers from Indian villages make the carpets powerful symbols of possibility and coexistence. This is evidence enough that, just like art, hope too finds its making in the human hand.

The post East-meets-West collaborations by Jaipur Rugs take local artistry global appeared first on Architectural Digest India.

“Indeed, even for open-air spaces, we never interpret the launch of a collection by thinking of the product as itself, but each element lives and is contextualized within an environment.” Over the years, he explains, the collections have evolved while maintaining the signature Minotti style, with new designs in dialogue with iconic ones. “Gordon Guillaumier’s Isole coffee tables, for example, are particularly versatile and easily matched with the entire outdoor collection.

Inspired by a contemporary 1950s aesthetic, they express a playful yet elegant character, thanks to
their distinctive fusion of materials (stone and glass) and available palette.” The Isole tables come in four sizes and are made of a combination of lava stone and glass in four shades—rust, cappuccino, green, and celadon. The colours enhance the materiality of the stone. The result is tactile, consistent in shape, but not lacking personality, especially in the unique colour palette and the pewter-coloured tubular steel legs.

These are aesthetic choices that remind us that, in recent years, outdoor furniture has become pertinent all through the year. “The home is acquiring an increasingly relevant role. It is not only a place conceived for moments of conviviality but also an intimate retreat in which to relax, the outdoor environ-
ment included,” says Roberto Minotti. “We therefore conceive furniture designed to make the open-air world usable in every season and every culture.”

The post Minotti’s lava stone coffee tables are like small atolls in a sea appeared first on Architectural Digest India.

A new volume of fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld’s 13 luxurious homes includes properties in France, Italy, Germany, and Monaco. And that doesn’t even cover them all. If the number of properties was extravagant, the diversity of styles was amazing as well. Every new home provided an excuse to embark on a different decorating adventure. “Buying excites me,” the fashion designer known for his wit once said. It was the quest for the perfect object and its acquisition that motivated him. Once a design project was completed, however, he often grew weary of it. “He would leave one world to invent another,” says Patrick Mauriès, co-author of Karl Lagerfeld: A Life in Houses. Another important and consistent element in his decorating schemes was an abundance of art books. Lagerfeld accumulated tens of thousands of them.

Pozzo di Borgo, Paris “Le siècle des lumières est aussi celui des couleurs lumineuses.” (“The Age of Enlightenment is also the age of luminous colours.”) This phrase by Karl Lagerfeld ran across the box set containing the three catalogues from his sale at Christie’s in 2000. At the time, he was letting go of 150 paintings and nearly 400 pieces of furniture, tapestries, porcelains, and gilded bronzes from the Louis XV and Louis XVI periods. These treasures were all from Hôtel Pozzo di Borgo, the grand house in Paris’s Faubourg Saint-Germain neighbourhood where he lived for three decades. His love affair with the 18th century began at the age of seven, when he discovered a painting by Adolph von Menzel in a Hamburg antiques shop, depicting Frederick the Great receiving his friends, including Voltaire, at the Palais de Sanssouci. For Voltaire, this scene represented the ideal of refinement, and for Lagerfeld, it ignited his dream of becoming an aristocrat.

Lagerfeld was always on the move, but when it came to Paris, he remained faithful to the Left Bank his entire life. When he left his home on the Rue de l’Université, his next stop was the Place Saint-Sulpice. White walls, mouldings, and friezes were paired with eggplant carpets—a colour made to order for Lagerfeld. The colour scheme provided a freshness to the decor that would almost make you forget that you’re in an 18th-century building by the Franco-Italian architect Giovanni Servandoni. The shell-shaped armchairs and sofas come from a house decorated by Elsie de Wolfe in the 1930s—the decorator’s style provided a source of inspiration for Lagerfeld on a number of occasions. Here, the effect created a room that is evocative of Hollywood’s golden age.

In 1981, François Mitterrand was elected president of France and Lagerfeld, fleeing the taxes he expected the French government would soon impose, moved to Monaco—specifically a luxury residence
designed by Gio Ponti and Michel Ravarino. He chose the revolutionary designs of the Memphis group as the inspiration for its decor. Ten years later, the collector sold it at auction, with no regrets. As he said in the catalogue for the 1991 Sotheby’s sale: “I fell in love with Memphis at first sight. In September 1981, I had moved into a large apartment in Monte Carlo. I had never lived in a modern house. Memphis was the ideal solution. I loved living surrounded by so many new colours and shapes. But the Memphis style wasn’t right for my second home in Monaco and I had to move on.”

The post Inside Karl Lagerfeld’s precious real estate portfolio appeared first on Architectural Digest India.

“What’s exciting about the Sri Lankan art scene is that we’re a very diverse group of practitioners. That is the nature of the people of this island. They are well travelled and exposed to other parts of the world, but in their narrative and conceptual direction, you always see the connection to Sri Lanka,” says Fernando.

Echo, Glide, Pivot brings together works by prolific modern and contemporary artists from across Sri Lanka and its diaspora, including selections of modern art pioneer Lionel Wendt’s works sourced from the Lionel Wendt Archive. Selected by assistant curator Mariyam Begum under the guidance of curatorial advisor Sandhini Poddar, the works are presented in various groupings, each engaging with a different element of Wendt’s oeuvre—his experiments with the image-making process, engagement with architecture and light, preoccupation with the human body, landscapes and more.

The result is a curation with works by leading modernists and Wendt’s contemporaries—Ivan Peries, George Claessen and George Keyt—and younger artists such as Rupaneethan Pakkiyarajah, Liz Fernando, Sebastian Posingis and others. With sculptures, performance based photography, video work and installations, the exhibit also highlights the practitioners’ use of different mediums. Fernando doesn’t want to restrict Kalā to an exhibition format, and has partnered with Art South Asia Project, a UK-based non-profit, to host talks, skill-based workshops and other programming for local practitioners.

The post Lionel Wendt Art Centre, Sri Lanka introduces a new platform for South Asian art appeared first on Architectural Digest India.

The museum’s massive collection—thousands of objects, drawings, photographs, and books—as the
curator Francesca Appiani explains, is divided into anthropological categories ranging from drinking to
spirituality. “This way, we can determine which aspects of daily life have yet to be touched by the so-called Alessi encyclopaedia, and discover evolution in cultural and domestic habits.”

In the ’70s, the 9090 was born, an espresso maker beautiful enough to be brought to the table. Alessi calls it an “amphibious” product, as it emerged from its place in the kitchen and was brought out in the open, easily seen by guests. The museum also hosts “frozen” products—which haven’t been produced (yet)—such as Satyendra Pakhalé’s Steelwave collection of stackable metallic tableware.

It also houses limited editions such as Guido Venturini’s massive Lingam incense burning vase, and objects created by their Alessi Study Centre, which focuses on emerging talents. Indian designer Sanchita Ajjampur was one of the participants in the first workshop in the early 1990s. Her creation—themed on the “memory of the offering” ritual—was an evocative basket wrapped in a copper-coloured metallic veil. Some years later, Ajjampur was invited to decorate a Mendini-designed porcelain vase for the Alessi and Mendini “100% Make Up” project; she was among 100 designers invited to replicate a vase in as many decorative modes.

An interesting discovery at the museum was Esercizio Formale, Ettore Sottsass’s limited-edition sketchbook from his 1961 India trip: “When I began collaborating with Ettore, I thought of publishing a book he had written. I asked him in 1978 and he agreed,” Alessi recalls. “I was expecting a design book, or at least his witty and original thoughts. Instead, he handed me stacks of sheets with drawings from a boat trip to the East. In any case, it went well.” Aside from what’s on display, there are also the flops. “Our company is destined to exist on the edge. As a result, failing indicates that we are at the forefront. I’m always concerned if we don’t fail for too long. Luckily, it doesn’t happen very often.”

The post Italy’s Alessi Museum and its iconic Indian finds appeared first on Architectural Digest India.

“Architecture, theatre, art and design coexist in these unique objects where knowledge converges and is linked by a common thread of emotions,” she adds. The geometrical Linea containers designed by Alessandro Mendini in 2015, the soft lines of a burgundy Byron bed by Piero Lissoni, and a black-and-white Storage Battente closet are the stars, as is the antique red metal structure of the Ex-Libris glass cabinet. As you walk among the tables, systems and bookcases, you can enjoy pieces by design masters like Achille Castiglioni and Murano artworks by Michela Cattai. Instead of the traditional white mannequin dresses, daring creations by hat designer Francesco Ballestrazzi and captivating virtuosities by the costume design studio SlowCostume hang in closets and cabinets. There are tributes to Bruno Munari, the artist designer who designed the Porro logo in the 1960s, as well as works from Alessandro Mendini’s private collection.

However, a pleasant surprise sits in the classic Porro cabinet, the Ex-Libris. The Indian Memory is a set of six teapots and two fruit bowls designed by Ettore Sottsass in the 1970s based on the profiles of Indian temples: “As an experiment with forms that blend architecture, sculpture and design, these ceramics are in perfect harmony with the geometric purity and architectural essence of Porro design, like the Ex-Libris that contains them,” says Porro. “It suggests how Italian design has always been curious to open up to the cultures of the world, including India’s that is so rich in symbolism.”

The collection, like many other art objects now on display in the showroom, is from collector Antonia Jannone’s Milanese gallery: the pieces will be on display until Salone del Mobile in April and can be purchased directly from the gallery. “Massimo Lissoni [Piero Lissoni’s brother] and Maria Porro came to see me a few months ago to choose the pieces for the showroom,” says Jannone. “They were utterly impressed by the ceramics.” Called Basil, Chamomile, Cardamom, Cherries, Cinnamon, Lapis Lazuli, Pepper and Sugar, they have simple names and a complicated backstory. The pieces were designed by Ettore Sottsass after a long trip to India in 1961, whose trace can be found in a story for Domus magazine, published in three episodes: “Ettore Sottsass travelled extensively: United States, China, India…,” explains Jannone.

“He made incredible trips around the world with his wife, Barbara Radice, and his inseparable camera.” The ceramics were created around 1972, in wood models, but it was only in 1987 that Rainer Krause, the founder of Anthologie Quartett, acquired the rights. In collaboration with master ceramist Alessio Sarri, he decided to produce them in colours that Sottsass desired; opaque and dusty. This is how the Indian
Memory made a debut at the Jannone Gallery, presented with a large cake in the shape of a Lapis Lazuli teapot on Sottsass’s 70th birthday—and now seen here at the new Porro showroom.

The post Porro in Milan showcases Ettore Sottsass and his Indian connection appeared first on Architectural Digest India.

Wriver presents an aesthetic that is contemporary, abstract and minimalist. The range includes upholstered chairs, sleek consoles, bed frames, bar cabinets and more. While the Arte collection combines materials highlighting its inherent playfulness, the Finn collection embraces simplicity with its streamlined designs and the Brezza shelving unit from the Primo collection stands out for its versatility. The Mollis chaise by Studio Sumeet Nagi, from the Fium collection, is an invitation to relax. It represents a fusion of the industrial and the organic with its soft lines and contours. Derived from the Latin word for “soft” and combining metal with fabric, its gentle curves and subtle hues exude warmth.

To enhance the innate potential of wood, stone, metal, glass, or any material that they’re working with, and to bring out true textures and tactility, Wriver’s designs stem from constant experimentation and innovation. “Our team of designers and artisans work with research-based techniques that respond to technological evolutions, and that’s the approach we like to take when shaping objects,” shares Lamba. The Lastra shelving unit, for instance, features an oxidation-finish technique on metal. “The resulting protective layer, patina, not only enhances the visual appeal of the metal but also acts as a barrier against further corrosion and deterioration,” he adds. Wriver is born with an intent to work within the concept of luxury furniture design while maintaining the authenticity of products. “We have an intrepid ambition of establishing India on the world map of design, and Wriver is a step in that direction,” he concludes.

The post Dreaming on a daybed with Wriver’s ‘accessible luxury’ furniture collection appeared first on Architectural Digest India.

“Turning a watercolour into a bejewelled bracelet is both a technical challenge that I wanted to push even further and a very interesting creative development,” says Nicolas Bos, president and CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels. “They call to mind true paintings, but they are fully articulated, with a very complex and detailed work of connections ensuring suppleness.”

Utilizing gems embedded with a density that recalls Italy’s centuries-old tradition of micromosaics, the series (part of the larger Le Grand Tour collection) is a pointillistic parade of romantic city- scapes—a bevy of legendary architectural elements relieved by green leaves and blue waters. Embodying Rome, the Escale Antique bracelet is worked with imagery of the Colosseum and columns found in the Forum. Escale Sacrée is delicately emblazoned with Florence’s Duomo emerging from a star-studded evening sky.

The Neapolitan bracelet, known as Escale Sur La Baie, features Mount Vesuvius erupting above the shimmering Bay of Naples. As for the Venetian segment of this lapidary journey, the Escale Au Palais bracelet is spiked with graphic Venetian Gothic arches from the Doge’s Palace, as well as candy-striped gondola poles. Small wonder that Bos likens the bracelets to extracts from a travel diary. Lucky for those of us who can’t draw a straight line, Van Cleef & Arpels has taken brush in hand and conjured a quartet of masterworks.

The post Van Cleef & Arpels puts the architectural gems of Italy on a wrist appeared first on Architectural Digest India.