To mark International Women’s Day, Interiors Monthly looks at seven women who will make their mark at Salone and Fuorisalone next month.
For more than 40 years Deanna Comellini has experimented at the crossroads of artisan knowledge and industrial design, working first on product design and then on textile design. She then developed the idea of ‘imperfect design,’ marked by the enhancement of imperfections to celebrate authenticity and the search for new means of expression. She founded GT Design in 1977 and has been its creative director ever since. In the 1990s she focused on the concept of the contemporary rug, natural fibres and experimentation with new avant-garde materials, innovating the industry with her disruptive rug collections. Golden Threads will be introduced next month.
Nao Tamura is a designer in the most modern terms. Her talents cross-over cultures, languages, disciplines, concepts and styles with consistency of smart thinking always at the heart of her work. She is truly global in her insights and execution. As a product of Tokyo and New York City creative communities, her solutions are equally at ease in the world of 2-D and 3-D with an uncanny ability to find that emotional connection with the audience. She originally studied communication design but her work today is extremely varied, taking in conceptual art, lighting, product and graphic design, among others. Her Origata bench for Porro is inspired by the making of kimonos, brutalist architecture and pop culture.
Valentina Erba co-founded rug producer Carpet Edition in 2005, after growing up surrounded by the family rug business Indikon, founded by her father Gianni four decades before. Since then the company has embarked on a path of continuous innovation by collaborating with well-known designers and offering versatile, customisable and sustainable products while cherishing ancient manufacturing techniques and extraordinary craftsmanship. Such is the brand’s prodyct mix you never know what will be next. Salone will see it introduce designs by the late Ken Scott, uniting fashion with art.
Chiara’s Andreatti’s CV reads like a roll-call of design brands including Glas Italia, Lema, Potocco, Gebrüder Thonet Vienna, Radici, Fendi Casa and Arflex. Since 2021 she has been art director for Potocco and Radici while continuing to design for both, including seating, indoor and outdoor rugs and carpets as well as responsibility for their presence at Salone. Other recent work includes upholstery and cabinet for Fendi Casa. Salone will see Potocco is take a path where indoor and outdoor settings complement each other without ever interrupting the aesthetic, formal understanding of the design, characterised by architectural details and natural colours.
Gunilla Zamboni’s creative studio and brand Gupica uses multi-disciplinary approach, involving decorative arts, interior and product design, contemporary experimentation and craftsmanship. It is an approach where decoration becomes a tool to propose useful codes to explore the expressive and sensorial dimension of the project. Attention to detail and a constant dialogue between contemporary and fragments linked to tradition are always distinguishing elements in the projects. Attention to detail and a constant dialogue between contemporary and fragments linked to tradition are always distinguishing elements in her work. The Lucente lighting design will be debuted by Visionnaire at Salone, with a light-diffusing bodies of the lamps, which look like coloured gemstones in sophisticated yet simple shapes, are made of a secondary raw material obtained by recycling Plexiglass.
A year after it was founded in 2017, Milla & Milli debuted its breakthrough collection: Offset at the Ambienta show in Zagreb. In 2019 Waves was awarded a Red Dot for Product Design. The Croatian manufacturer highlights its use of FSC-certified local timber, usually oak and walnut. ‘Milla&Milli started out as a brainchild of two art lovers; a shared dream of two souls in love with design, wood and each other. And to this day, that love and passion is still clearly embodied in every masterpiece we create,’ says Ksenija Pašalić, Milla & Milli ceo and co-founder – with her husband Ivac.
She turned to friend Maša Vukmanović, now creative director, to create the brand. She in turn created the Thinkobjects studio with Jelena Lukač Kirš and Jakov Šrajer to share the design process. ‘Throughout our collaboration with Maša, we dreamed about what we are doing now. We are very much looking forward to each finished product, and there is an indescribable feeling of joy of creation’, says Ksenija. Edge, by Belgian designer Alain Gilles will debut at Salone.
