Milan Design Week 2012: Wednesday 18 April

Posted by Vogue Living on April 19, 2012 · 6 Comments 

Luminescent vases and knitted pillow boyfriends were just some of the things the Vogue Living team discovered on day 3 of Milan Design Week.

DAY 3: Wednesday 18 April

 

The ‘Ilse Collection’ by Ilse Crawford for Georg Jensen

We caught up with designer Ilse Crawford at a Georg Jensen event celebrating the launch of the ‘Ilse Collection’, her first range for the luxury Danish brand.

Crawford is a close friend of Vogue Living. She guest edited the May/June 2011 issue and there’s a three-page story about her collaboration with Georg Jensen within our current issue. We’ll publish our video interview with the designer as part of our post-fair blog coverage but in the meantime check out the story on page 105 of Vogue Living July/August (on news stands and Zinio now).
 
 

‘My Knitted Boyfriend’ by Noortje De Keijzer
Design Academy Eindhoven exhibition, Studio Zeta, Via Friuli 26

Designer Noortje De Keijzer proves love and companionship can be found in the most unlikely places with ‘My Knitted Boyfriend’. One of fifty recent Design Academy Eindhoven graduates chosen to exhibit in Milan, De Keijzer’s design is a pillow with personality, a cartoonish life-sized knitted man with arms long enough to give perfect hugs.

Available in two forms, Arthur and Steve, the designer also shows a range of handknitted accessories to personalise your new companion that includes beards, glasses, watches, bow-ties and even tattoos. The quirk factor of the design is further highlighted in the winsome short film, above, created to accompany the project.
 
 

The Weather:  Bart Van Heesch, Emile Kröner and  Lana Knutson
Studio Zeta, Via Frulia 26

Upstairs from Design Academy Eindhoven was The Weather. Curated by Maaike Strengholt, the exhibition brings together designers whose work transforms everyday objects into art. Taking part is Bart Van Heesch, designer of the copper bike that caught our attention in Milan in 2011.

Van Heesch was showing a series of blinds formed from lightweight metal discs. As shown in the video above, the structure is strung together like venetian blinds. When closed, the discs appear as a shining expanse of fish-scale like metal. Once opened, they shimmer and float in the breeze.

Functionality plays second fiddle to decoration in ‘White Animal Life’, a wild series of oversized tableware. Firmly tongue-in-cheek, designer Emilie Kröner appropriates the forms of exotic animals in her designs so that a crocodile becomes a serving dish; elephants are twin salt and pepper shakers; and a flamingo a gigantic carafe.  Kröner, who operates under the name Piselli Projects, was inspired by the animal figurines as both decoration and conversation starters within 17th and 18th century tableware.

Lara Knutson, an industrial designer and architect based in New York, exhibits ‘Soft Glass’ a series of knitted vases that glow and sparkle with iridescent light when moved. The objects’ unusual luminescence is the result of the material used to create them – a reflective fabric interwoven with minute glass beads. Knutson also uses the material to create jewellery which she sells at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

 
 

Sambonet ‘Conca’ flatware designed by Gio Ponti
Ventura Lambrate, Via Ventura 6

Several designs created in 1951 by celebrated Italian designer Gio Ponti have been put into production for the first time by Sambonet. At the exhibit in Ventura Lambrate, the Italian tableware brand shows a Ponti tray design and also ‘Conca’, a series of asymmetrical cutlery. The company worked from original sketches to produce the pieces, which follow Ponti’s focus on functionalism. Design details were developed through close observation of human habits; for example, the short blade of the ‘Conca’ knife is a response to the tendency for people to use only the point of the blade when cutting.
 
Our next blog post will feature reports from days 4 + 5 of Milan Design Week festivities and our Vogue Living team in Milan are also reporting live on Twitter (@vogueliving).
 
Producers: David Clark and Zoe Jeffery
Photographer: Paul Barbera
Text: Madeleine Hinchy

Filed under Milan Design Week 2012 · Tagged with Bart Van Heesch, Design Academy Eindhoven, Emilie Kröner, Georg Jensen, Gio Ponti, Ilse Crawford, Lara Knutson, Milan Design Week 2012, Noortje De Keijzer, Photographer - Paul Barbera, Salone del Mobile 2012, Sambonet, Ventura Lambrate 2012, Vogue Living - David Clark, Vogue Living - Zoe Jeffrey