Marta Sala Éditions & Atelier Février

Lazzarini & Pickering for Marta Sala Éditions & Atelier Février Sep 2018 - Nov 2018

For the Future Perfect New York’s first fall show, we’ve put together two of our favorite international designers, Milan-based Marta Sala Éditions and French rug designer Atelier Février. The collections offer two radically different design visions yet share a dedication to exceptional production and innovative aesthetics.

Marta Sala Éditions, a collection of furniture and lighting curated by the brand’s namesake in collaboration with leading architects, is imbued with a sense of design rigor and a kind of orderly and thoroughly modern glamour that gives each piece a luxurious edge. Designed by Rome-based architectural studio Lazzarini & Pickering, Marta Sala Éditions – utilizing a rich palette of chrome, marble and brass – exudes what Sala herself calls “The secret soul of useful things.”

By contrast, Atelier Février’s rugs evince a more humanistic and craft-focused approach. Deftly blending the ancient with the new, each rug is an object in possession of singular beauty and otherworldly elegance. French designer Florian Pretet, who has worked with brands such as Hermès, sees each rug as an artist would a canvas, by projecting rich, meticulously patterned designs onto a functional three-dimensional format.

While their audacious designs and unorthodox finishes give the rugs their sui generis glamour, they also possess superior materiality with hand-carded and hand-spun wool sourced from Tibet and the finest quality silk available in China.

ABOUT MARTA SALA

 

Marta Sala’s Éditions is a line of furniture, objects and lighting created in collaboration with leading architects and designers. For the Italian enterprise, which was founded in 2015, Sala has tapped Rome-based architectural studio Lazzarini & Pickering as chief designers for two concurrent collections.

 

In many respects, Sala’s eponymous project is the product of a lifetime immersed in Italy’s rich legacy of design and architecture. In 1947, her mother Maria Teresa Tosi co-founded iconic furniture company Azucena with her uncle, the architect Luigi Caccia Dominioni and Ignazio Gardella, two of the country’s most prominent modern architects. In recent years, the company – known for its sleekly elegant – and increasingly collectible – furnishings was helmed by Sala and her sister Anna.

 

Like her famous uncle, Sala believes that architecture is the foundation of all design, and furniture is much like a dialogue. Claudio Lazzarini and Carl Pickering, who share this same vision, were the perfect choice for the first two collections, which include seating, tables, lighting and several home objects. In the spirit of iconic Italian design, the range marries modernist lines with sumptuous details, a strong sense of color and unexpected materials. It’s a hybrid that Sala calls: The secret soul of useful things.

 

Given her background Sala functions as the curator and connector, realizing the brief of the architects and finding the right craftspeople to create the world-class pieces. “We are very spoilt around Milan,” Sala says. “We have this unique combination between handcraft and technical support that gives an incredibly high standard of quality but is still full of soul due to the human application on each piece. I personally deal with production because I know exactly what I want and how to optimize the knowledge of the architects and craftsmen.”

 

Many of the collection’s pieces are tailor-made to contemporary life, some combining multiple functions in a single piece. In this spirit, a lamp does triple duty as a screen and table. Seating is modular and adaptable, suitable to a range of commercial and residential environments. “Before design used to instruct people how to sit, stand and eat. Now we have to offer a product that is useful and modular and able to answer different needs and spaces,” says Sala. The pieces echo the ethos of Sala’s uncle Caccia Dominioni, who saw design, architectural and urban planning as an integrated whole. According to Sala, this approach “gives each piece a unique solution and strength.”

 

Since its inception, Marta Sala’s Édition’s has resonated with architects, interior designers and editors. The range has been highlighted in world class publications including Wallpaper* Magazine, The New York Times, Interview, AD France, Town and Country and Elle Decoration.

ABOUT Atelier Février

 

Pieces of singular beauty, Atelier Février’s rugs represent the apotheosis of modern art combined with traditional craftsmanship and expertise. The company was founded by French designer Florian Pretet, whose work with luxury brand Hérmes exposed him to the sublime craftsmanship and technical virtuosity displayed by textile artisans in Kathmandu, Tibet.

Approaching the rug as an artist would a canvas, Pretet seeks to faithfully reproduce his rich, meticulously patterned designs onto a functional three-dimensional format. Each finished rug is the result of local, hand knotted Himalayan techniques that have been passed along for generations.

Atelier Février’s rugs are distinguished by the fact that no machines or chemicals are involved in their production. Every step of the process – from shearing the sheep to the rug’s final washing – is done by hand, requiring a combined effort of more than 50 artisans. The production method begins with Pretet’s vibrant and detailed drawings, which are then lovingly hand knotted by the expert local weavers (120 knots per square inch). All materials are of exceptional quality: hand-carded and hand-spun wool has been sourced from Tibet and the silk is of the finest quality available in China.

The result: highly covetable, naturally beautifully items of functional art showcasing an unexpected fusion of cultures and styles. Atelier Février have contemporized vestigial Tibetan techniques to create a new kind of product, one that balances the cutting edge with a sense of authenticity; a character that can only be evinced by products that are truly created by hand.

EXHIBITED WORKS