At Milan design week, Louis Vuitton returned to Palazzo Serbelloni to showcase its new ‘Objets Nomades’ creations – produced in collaboration with some of the world’s most exciting design talent. The rooms of the historic palace proved a perfect setting to showcase the furniture, objects and textiles; one of the most memorable was a mirrored space with a chair at its centre designed by London-based studio Raw Edges, founded by Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay.
Named ‘Stella’, this piece took a complex two-dimensional textile covering and exploded it into three dimensions, appearing as much of an optical illusion as the mesmerising hall of mirrors it was placed in.
When it comes to balancing their studio’s own codes with a brand like Louis Vuitton that has such a strong heritage and visual DNA, Shay describes the collaboration as ‘a dialogue,’ explaining that whenever they start work on something new, they immediately know when it feels like it could be a Louis Vuitton project. The maison is more willing to ‘embrace the crazy’ than other brands and has the resources to invest in the complex methods needed to realise their ideas. ‘That’s not what you would expect, maybe, from a very elegant luxury brand,’ he says, ‘but it’s exciting.’
Some say creating a chair is the hardest challenge for any designer, but Shay thinks this is a myth, explaining that they approach it like any other three-dimensional object. ‘When we designed this particular chair, we were so focused on this 2D to 3D concept,’ he says. ‘Of course we made sure it’s comfortable, but the main focus was this sculptural quality and the craft.’
Before they move onto the next project, Shay and Yael want to perfect ’Stella’, which is still at the prototype stage. ‘We try to have a core principle in the design that once you crack it, then it opens up more possibilities,’ says Shay. ‘Once we understand how to achieve the continuity between those crazy bubbles, then we have ideas for more patterns that will express this idea of stretchiness. If you think about an upholstery pattern, you usually just wrap it. But here we’re not wrapping, we’re projecting and it’s really distorted. We want to make sure this idea – the real DNA of the project – is what you see as soon as you observe the object. That’s the beauty of working with Louis Vuitton because they get the idea, and then they push. We know the next prototype will be perfect.’
Shay says ‘we embraced the idea of travel and went to visit the Louis Vuitton atelier in Asnières, Paris, where you see how they make the trunks and they have all the inventions like folding beds, umbrellas, lots of mechanisms.’ Yael adds, ‘they were also very inventive in terms of materials, like coated cotton.’
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The designers, who studied at the Royal College of Art, find it difficult to reflect on whether they bring a particularly ‘London’ spirit to the French house; ‘It’s really hard to tell when you’re so inside it,’ says Yael. ‘London is such a multicultural city,’ adds Shay, much like Louis Vuitton’s own international team of designers. He describes their relationship with the brand as intimate and personal, with a high level of trust. ‘We don’t see this big brand with this massive powerhouse that is behind them,’ he says, smiling.
‘In a way there are no limits to what you can do,’ Shay says of working with the artisans in the Louis Vuitton atelier, ‘but at the same time everything has a limit. It’s this balance between how you work with people with amazing capabilities, yet understanding the limitations of material and production. That’s the fun.’ Yael is particularly focused on three-dimensional geometry and works closely with fabricators who cover objects with leather. She recalls instances where, despite language barriers, there was a profound mutual understanding of materials through body language and craft. ‘You know exactly how well they know the material, there is this understanding,’ she says. raw-edges.com; louisvuitton.com
