Please greet the very debut of Best of Italy, an explorative journey across Italy and its artisanal excellences started from the creative partnership between home decoration leading brand Coincasa and Elle Decor Italia. First stop is Murano, a tribute to the company’s lagoon origins, and also the place where three stunning glass and carafe collections made of Murano handblown glass have been recently forged to enrich your mise en place with boundless value. Behind them, a bunch of young and promising Italian designers who delivered three contemporary lines built on distinctive processing carried out by hand and affordable prices. But let’s take a closer look.
The Campay series (cover image) features a carafe, water glass, and flûte. A work by Giorgia Zanellato and Daniele Bortotto, it is shaped through the Incalmo technique, an ancient local manufacturing process allowing to assemble separate, previously warmed glass pieces together so that different chromatic nuances can blend smoothly in one piece. A mix of modern forms and long-standing artisanal expertise, the collection is now on sale at the Guggenheim Museum Shop. You know what, a certain Giorgio Morandi immediately comes to mind when looking at it.
Left, Gondolo’s by Matteo Cibic: a carafe and glass collection inspired to Venetian 1700’s female aesthetic codes, with “objects seemingly wearing half-marbled vests”.
Right, Ola by design studio Lanzavecchia + Wai: a table set comprising a glass and a carafe which doubles as flower vase, too. The line unravels around two old Murano glass-blowing techniques, namely “Balloton” and “Rigadin”: the first is meant to create a peculiar optical effect on glass surfaces through the use of steel moulds and crisscrossed reliefs, whilst the latter makes use of a pear-shaped bronze mould leading the jug to take on its final shape. Strong of its fluid geometries, the collection aims to evoke on glass the tactile experience of fruit, plants and sea waves.
Up for sale in many Italian cities and via Coincasa e-boutique, all collections are manufactured by Murano-based Fornace Mian, first founded in 1962 – the same year of Coin’s debut in the field of home decor – and still a prestigious advocate of thousand-year long crafting traditions.
