Valerio Sommella
A young Milan designer’s explorations take him from litter boxes to Moooi carpets
the Milan designer’s stellar path from pet products to artful objets
IN THE BEGINNING i actually wanted to be a marine biologist, but i was living in milan, and that would have meant travelling away. i always liked making things, so i ended up studying industrial design at the Politecnico di milano. as soon as i started, it felt quite natural. i had no doubts from that point.
FIRST MENTOR the one guide, the maestro, that i’ve had in my life – and i owe him a lot – is Stefano giovannoni. i began working for him in 2004. For him, one of the key elements is that we design objects for people to buy. of course, there is an artistic and stylistic element in it, but for him it was very much related to future markets and what people will desire in a couple of years.
WANDERING TO MARCEL after three years with Stefano, i wanted to see the other side of the coin. So i moved to amsterdam to join marcel Wanders. it was completely different. marcel’s is a much bigger company, and there is a very decorative approach. For the 2007 Salone del mobile, the first year he had a solo show – a big exhibition in Via tortona – i worked on some of the crochet collection. it was really hands-on, making things in the workshop.
RETURN TO MILAN at the end of 2008, i went back to milan. it was the right time to open my own company and to start doing things my way. the hardest part when you’re on your own is to get clients and figure out the business side. one of my first clients was an italian company called united Pets. they knew me from giovannoni’s studio, so they contacted me, and i began this relationship that went on for a few years – we did probably more than 10 pet products. it snowballs, the more clients you work with; eventually some people hear your name and call you.
NETWORKING i contacted alessi because i wanted to work with them. giovannoni did many products for them, but i never had the chance to work with them directly. it was hard to make the first one; i probably sent seven proposals, but it was never the right thing or the right time until i designed the bottle opener Bulla. after that, it was quite smooth, and we now have four more in the pipeline. We understand each other; they know my style. the Koki spoon for alessi is my favourite of my own designs. a spoon is a simple object; there’s not much to innovate or to create. But if you see it and hold it in your hand, it’s a perfect balance of shape, size and features.
SHIFTING AESTHETICS In some areas of my portfolio there is a quite precise style – in the Alessi products specifically. It probably has to do with the material: I wanted to work with stainless steel, which is stiff, solid and strong, and to treat it as if it were a softer object, as if it’s really melted into an object of soft shapes. But if you look, for instance, at some of the lamps I’ve done, you’ll see a different approach: very rigid and geometric. I like to think of my projects not as chapters of the same story, with one following the other in an ordered way, but as single stories collected into a book. At the end, you can see that the same writer is behind it, but every time it’s different – you have different characters, which are the companies, the materials, the technology.
THE ROLE OF EXPERIMENTATION Material experimentation often comes from the companies. For the Fur rugs I did for Moooi, for instance, I saw this technology that they had developed and said, “Wait, I can do something interesting with this.” For me, it was a big achievement to work with Marcel from a different position, on a completely different level. It wasn’t easy. the rugs are the result of a long process and many proposals. But it was clear since the beginning that Marcel understood the strength of the concept.
It’s the same with the sunglasses collection for Modo; they had a patent on the combination of two materials – beta titanium and tr90 (a flexible thermoplastic) – and the way the lenses are inserted into the very thin frames. When I’m given boundaries or limitations, I start testing to see what I can make of them. Sometimes it’s difficult to convince a company to adapt a technology or a material they are not familiar with. the result of a design work is only the tip of an iceberg, which is actually made of hundreds of concepts that never see the light.
FUTURE PRODUCTION Next April, during Salone del Mobile, I’ll present new lamps at Euroluce and launch some outdoor furniture for Plust collection. We are doing another eyewear collection with Modo for next spring/summer, and collaborating with torre and Alcantara on a couple of collections of sofa and lounge chairs. Also, I’m working on something completely different: coffee machines, for the American market. sommella.com