September, after the summer break, is the month in which the design machine gears back up, with events scheduled all over the world, driven by technical-commercial factors and/or an accent on new ideas. The itinerary winds through Europe and beyond, touching on Paris, Oslo, Bologna, Verona, London, the Principality of Monaco, Cannes, Sydney, Como, Vienna, Singapore. There are technical fairs like Cersaie and Marmomac, and others connected with the nautical world at the highest levels, including the Cannes Yachting Festival and the Monaco Yacht Show. There are also cities that organize design weeks to focus on the ideas of local creative talents: a multiplicity of voices that can be disorienting, but allows us to monitor current trends on a truly global scale.
Ruben Modigliani – Photo © Valentina Sommariva
One such trend is the pursuit of an increasingly close relationship between designer and material. This lies at the base of most collectible design (a rapidly growing sector), where the treatment of materials is one of the most distinctive signs, observable in the work of many young talents. Still outside the circuit of industrial production, these young strivers are coming to terms with made by hand – often firsthand – as a way to give form to their ideas. And they are bringing a breath of fresh air to crafts, a world still anchored in tradition.
Age-old workmanship methods meet a way of designing that stems from digital technologies; natural materials go side by side with high-tech substances. The use of machines is seen in terms of play, opening up new pathways. As in the work of the textile designer Gaspard Fleury-Dugy, seen at Paris Design Week, whose knitted vases bring together fashion, sculpture, design, industrial production and handiwork. The most interesting thing is that he makes his creations by forcing the limits of machines usually utilized for sports socks or running shoes. An “improper” use that creates something new: a direction that is being taken by many. It will be interesting to see what they come up with – in a future that seems very near indeed.
