Design
Back in family hands, Montegrappa Writing Instruments thrives
Back in family hands, Montegrappa Writing Instruments thrives
Giuseppe Aquila is the CEO of Montegrappa, a fine writing instrument maker in Italy that turned 100 years old this year. Based out of the city of Bassano del Grappa, Montegrappa is one of the leading luxury pen makers worldwide. In 2009, the firm become an independent company once again after Aquila’s family bought it back from luxury conglomerate the Richemont Group. It was a rare move that proved lucky for Aquila and his family.
Richemont courted Montegrappa for several years before making the family a generous offer. After agreeing to sell control of the company, Aquila remained on board at the company for a short while. He explains that his new role was to offer knowledge, but not to play a part in planning the future of the company. Richemont’s oversight of Montegrappa likely made business sense, but was changing a lot of what made the brand distinct. Unsure about his role in brand’s future, Aquila eventually left.
When the economy began to sink around 2007-2008, Aquila learned that Richemont was looking to cut costs and unload some of their smaller holdings – Montegrappa was on that list. Due to a close relationship with Richemont leadership, Aquila was able to enter talks with Richemont to buy back the family company, and in 2009, Montegrappa returned to Aquila management with Giuseppe at the helm. With renewed invigoration, he began to move the company back to what he felt was its biggest chance for success.
Tradition and high fashion meet with Malaak bespoke abayas
Tradition and high fashion meet with Malaak bespoke abayas
Feeling like a rock star today? Wear a robe with wide shoulder pads, armed with spikes and studs galore. In a romantic mood? Pick the flowing one, adorned with cream-coloured silk roses. For red carpet occasions, there's the magnificent one with shiny-sparkly embroidery on the back and shoulders. Dubai-based designer Huda al Nuaimi, 30, is the one making these exceptional robes, each a fashion statement. But these glamorous garments are not normal dresses, rather they're versions of the abaya, the customary Arabic cloak.
The abaya is meant to cover a lady’s body while she is in public. Traditionally, it is black, plain and has a loose fit. The path to high fashion was laid by designers creating luxury abayas, adorning sleeves and hems with crystal ornaments and embroidery while keeping to the traditional pattern. Huda's stylish abayas go further by varying in length and shape, introducing previously unseen details and ornaments, as well as nifty little innovations like tiny belts hidden inside the robes to enhance the cascading effect of the flowing fabrics.
Huda founded her high-fashion label, Malaak, meaning 'angel' in Arabic, out of necessity, she explains while proudly presenting her creations in her Dubai showroom. "The abaya has certain values, it is there for a purpose. So we want to maintain that, but be as fashionable as we want at the same time. We love fashion, we have a lot of fashion items, but we cannot wear them outside, even though we want to. So I thought: Why not create pieces that make us fashionable when we go out?"
The daughter of a fashion designer, Huda studied design in London and Dubai before acting on the need she felt. “I personally needed abayas that I like wearing”, Huda says. So in 2010, she started her own label with each collection sporting a different theme. Her first fashion coup was a line of short-sleeved abayas, challenging fashionistas to pick their own long sleeve tops to customise the look.
Dutch designer Amine van Lieshout on collaborating with her artist brother
Amine and Joep van Lieshout create bags lined with art
It is often said that art and design are closely related, but rarely is that statement so literally true as it is in the art/design collaboration of Amine and Joep van Lieshout. Amine, a bag maker, and Joep, head of the Rotterdam-based Atelier van Lieshout, are – you guessed it – related. Brother and sister are currently working together on a line of bags designed and manufactured by the former and hand-painted by the latter.
- Amine van Lieshoutt presenting her LIESHOUTT collection for the first time at Object Rotterdam design fair
The understated hand-made leather bags come in three sizes and four colours that will suit both a male and female wardrobe and work both for daytime, evening and weekend. But wait? Where is the painting? The art is well hidden inside the bag and can be its owner's well-kept secret: Joep van Lieshout hand paints directly on the lining of each bag – upside-down, so it is seen the right way up when peeking inside or rummaging around. Anyone familiar with the eclectic work of Joep van Lieshout will easily recognise the organic shapes typical of his work. Thus, each bag is not only a hand-crafted accessory, but also an original work of art.
We spoke to Amine van Lieshout about her new collection and the collaboration with her brother.
Cover Craft
Insight behind the new CENTURION Magazine cover
Longtime readers of CENTURION magazine have become accustomed to a few of our time-honoured editorial hallmarks. From our understated, award-winning all-black matte cover, recognised and appreciated around the world as a marque of excellence and exclusivity, to the carefully cultivated articles, photo essays, reportages and illustrations about unusual and superlative purveyors, properties, places and products, an element of craft has always imbued each issue of Centurion.
Starting with the newest print edition, we are emphasising the timeless and time-tested principles of heritage and provenance with an updated visual language that underscores the magazine’s continuing creative evolution and expression. These values will be brought to the fore – quite literally, as you’ve doubtless already noticed – by showcasing craftsmanship in its most tactile form on the cover. For our inaugural iteration, noted bookbinder Katharina Lechner has embossed our unmistakable moniker onto supple pebble grain leather – the first of what will be innumerable variations that emphasise craft in its purest form.
Click through for our in-house video following the making of the cover.
New York design duo cast creative chair
New York design duo cast creative chair
- Photo: Rhett Russo
- Anne van der Zwaag, director of OBJECT sitting on T-stool. Photo: Marcel Kollen
Specific Objects is the name of a New York-based husband-and-wife design studio. The specific object they showed at the recent Object Rotterdam design fair was the ceramic T-Stool, and the first time a person sat on one of these objects was at the fair itself, as the stools in question were only just completed and practically rushed from the kiln directly to the fair.
The reason the stools could even get there in time for the opening is that they were not produced in Brooklyn, where Rhett Russo and Katrin Müller-Russo usually work, but in the Netherlands, where Müller-Russo recently completed a residency at the European Ceramic Workcentre (.ekwc). The centre's residency programme allows artists and designers, many of whom have never worked with clay before, to live and work in ‘s-Hertogenbosch (less than an hour from Amsterdam) and avail of the centre's work places, several kilns, a specialist library, and the know-how of professionally trained instructors who know the ins and out of working with clay. Rhett Russo had done a residency at the centre before, in 2012, and when his wife's project at .ekwc began to get more complex and labour-intense, he joined in, making it another Specific Objects team effort.
Dubai's contemporary art and design event, March 15-25th
Dubai's contemporary art and design event, March 15-25th
- Bharti Kher. 'Reveal the secrets that you seek', 2011. Courtesy Galerie Perrotin, Paris
History and heritage may not be the first things that spring to mind when you think of the brave new world of Dubai, but the metropolis symbolised by the glittering modernity of the sail-shaped Burj Al Arab hotel knows how to champion all things contemporary – and art is no exception.
The art world is all set for Art Dubai. Now in its sixth year, the fair is attracting collectors from all around the region proffering them its jewel box of 75 galleries from 32 countries showing more than 500 artists. Among the galleries making an appearance at the fair this year is Lombard Freid Projects, NY with work including the playful yet political paintings of Eko Nugroho and Paris’ Galerie Perrotin showing work including the dramatically re-interpreted objects of artist Bharti Kher.
In conversation with legendary lighting designer Ingo Maurer
In conversation with legendary lighting designer Ingo Maurer
Lighting designer Ingo Maurer in conversation with Helen Wybrew-Bond
In an age where designers are often referred as ‘stars’, Ingo Maurer is perhaps best recognised as an institution in the world of lighting and, indeed, the wider world of art and design. At the age of 80, his career has already spanned decades and yet his passion for creation and innovation still burns as brightly as ever.
Born near Lake Constance in Germany, he originally worked as a graphic designer before moving to the United States. There, Maurer fell in love with the bright lights – quite literally – of New York City and returned to Germany, where he settled in Munich to begin what would become a long and illustrious career in lighting design.
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