Crafty: Fendi turns to ‘fatto a mano’

Milan – When times get tough, brands get design – or at least get designers to work with them in a way that adds value and profile to both parties. In this case, the brand is Fendi, and the 10 (well-known and lesser-known) designers involved are taking part in ‘Craft Punk’, a design performance that sees them using discarded material from the Fendi production process – leathers, branded fabrics, plastic decorative elements, even metal hardware – to transform waste into most-wanted objects and artefacts.

Studio Glithero worked with ceramics and photoreactive materials to create a white vase that changes colour gradually when exposed to light, while Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay at Raw-Edges folded and refolded sheets of DuPont’s water-resistant, rip-resistant Tyvek to create a series of plush pleats, which were in turn pleated further to create a springy cushion when stuffed with discarded polyurethane foam. Simon Hasan – a name to watch in 2009 – meanwhile used a medieval boiling technique to turn leather scraps and off-cuts into a hard, unyielding material, playing with our expectations of leather as a luxury item.

For Fendi, the collaboration was both timely and telling: fatto a mano – handcraft – is a topic being discussed by designers, retailers and brands alike at this year’s Salone Del Mobile. Significantly, every party shares a common understanding of craft underpinned by technology or the chemical processes needed to transform base materials into new objects of wonder.