Pinto x Stefano Pilati collaborate to launch experimental capsule collection

Legendary Italian designer Stefano Pilati has recently ventured into furniture design in a unique collaboration with French interior design agency Pinto. A kingpin in haute couture and creative direction for some of the most celebrated fashion houses such as Yves Saint Laurent, Prada, Cerruti, Ermenegildo Zegna Couture, Armani, he has now branched into gender-fluid fashion with his brand Random Identities. Collaborating with the interior design brand Pinto, Pilati found a way to furniture design just as his experimental approach to design was observed and appreciated by Pinto’s co-artistic director Fahad Hahiri alongside Pietro Scaglione. “For me, working together creates a relationship and an exchange. It is not simply bringing Stefano’s ideas into the Pinto universe, but rather transforming the Pinto universe thanks to Stefano,” says Hariri. The capsule collection comprising an oversized sofa and a sculptural armchair emanates Pilati’s approach to draping and designing merged with merchandising and marketing with creative influences.

“Designing for a person and a body is not the same as designing furniture. It is possible to find some affinities across the industrial aspect of fashion design where it becomes necessary to recall the physics, gravity, proportions, and tensions shared between parts. Upholstery, as a craft, is something a fashion designer can understand with a certain familiarity,” says Stefano Pilati. Identifying codes in fashion through the years, Pilati adorned the world with his muse bags, tulip skirts, enhanced silhouettes, pagoda-shoulder blouses and an assortment of many compelling designs to be recognised for his mastery of silhouettes. Sharing a deeper appreciation for fashion and design with Pinto, Paris, Pilati marks his first foray into furniture design with the similar essence of drapes and outlines. The capsule collection commences with an oversized sofa design in a form deliberately intended to keep the exterior's seeming simplicity and laissez-faire aspect while satisfying the highest quality and comfort standards of traditional French upholstery. The body is crafted from a simple oak wood frame with high-resilience foam of varying densities, which is then layered and buttoned up with origami-like folds in a 'Dune' colour. The fabric was sourced from the French heritage fabric house, Maison Pierre Frey and works admirably to upholster the sofa, mimicking Pilati’s couture draperies.

“The perfection and the precision of Stefano’s gestures were so natural and simple in appearance, but are the result of an expert eye and a demanding work on proportions, the throwing, the draping, etc,” expresses Hariri while appreciating the Italian designer’s sophisticated approach to design. The idea behind draping and playing with contours, shapes and silhouettes, came to Pilati when he casually concealed some antique pieces of furniture in a holiday home to suit the aesthetics of a flamboyant Italian house. He covered the run-down furniture pieces with carpets, pillows, Toile de Jouy, straws and jute, styling them with textures, shades and colours. Though not a primary practitioner of interior design, Pilati does correlate his fashion design approach to furniture and industrial design. “I guess my style in decorating houses is how I am used to dressing up. However, I am familiar with the practice and enjoy it as much. Pinto is a fantastic “wardrobe” of beautiful designs,” says Pilati.

The designer’s seemingly casual concealing remains the major emphasis of the capsule collection, as seen by a second piece fashioned from a circular woven water hyacinth rug over a rattan armchair. A team of artisans was commissioned to construct a lost wax bronze casting, each with its waxed patina. As a limited edition of eight pieces, the bronze sculptural armchair was imagined by Pilati and Hariri as an expansively sized rug, clothing a chair. It turned out to be a subtle play of proportions, resulting in a sophisticated chair design which was further expanded on a stylistic expression—a living work of art attained by transforming Pilati’s perishable ideal ‘gesture’ into an immortal bronze sculpture.

While Stefano Pilati continues to thrive as a multidisciplinary designer, styling fashion and furniture, Pinto, under the artistic guidance of Hariri and Scaglione responds to the demands of the design market with quality and care. For over fifty years and with an experience of 500 projects, the french design firm continues to deliver top projects and products internationally.