Introduction: Milan is under siege. To besiege it is the “people of design” bouncing between Salone del Mobile at Fieramilano Rho and the cascade of events, presentations and installations at Fuorisalone. In this context, leather (and it is not just a way of saying) is literally everywhere, declined above all in “various and possible” ways, not classic, and in solutions that highlight its versatility and the ability to be translated into a design tool for interiors, from the walls to furnishing accessories, reaching new seating solutions. It is therefore not easy to orient oneself in this enormous and varied offer. We try to recount some experiences of leather enhancement that in Milan have been enjoying particular success and interest.
Louis Vuitton is back in Milan with his Objets Nomades Collection, which, since 2012, has been keeping alive the long tradition of the maison in the creation of travel items, designed by famous international designers and made thanks to the know-how of its artisans. Leather, it goes without saying, is the protagonist of this project, with a tendency to make it an increasingly precious detail. This can be seen in the choices made by the two design studios that debuted in the LV installation hosted at Palazzo Serbelloni: Atelier Biagetti and Zanellato Bortolotto. The first created Anemona, a dining table with a glass top and a wavy base covered in soft natural LV leather on the outside. The second Zanellato/Bortolotto, on the other hand, proposed Mandala Screen, a screen made with a sophisticated Louis Vuitton leather weave.
Conceria Bonaudo was the protagonist of a very special installation at the Grand Hotel et de Milan. It was called Musica da Viaggio (Travel’s Music), created by the designer Vito Nesta and located inside the rooms where Giuseppe Verdi was accommodated and died. “The real challenge – writes Annalisa Russo – in the presentation of this project lies in the choice of the material. The leather produced by Bonaudo, in an ad hoc range of colours, becomes an element capable of designing living spaces with which to interact, polychrome capsules vibrating with energy in close connection with the rich interiors of the past in which they were placed”.
Conceria Sicerp, on the other hand, presents its collection and its creative vision in the space of the Nhow Hotel in Via Tortona. A choice of leathers, the story of their productive vision, the flexible identity of the material become the protagonists of a presence that emphasises the value of leather and places it at the centre of the interest of a world, that of design, which often tends to consider it less often than other solutions. A gap, the latter, that seemed to have been reduced in this edition of Salone and Fuorisalone. We will discuss this again later on.
In the picture, from left: Musica da Viaggio (Bonaudo), Objets Nomades (Louis Vuitton), Sicerp set up (pictures: Gloria Mitter)
