Intrigued by the images that accompany the launch of the new products, we asked Christophe Penasse to tell us how these products were born and what effect the coronavirus experience had.

Do you think something has to change with the coronavirus?
We are interior and product designers and what we are doing, we are not the only ones, is to incorporate craftsmanship into our work. But it’s difficult, many of our clients are used to perfection and don’t understand “the perfection of imperfection”, i.e. the craftsmanship made to measure, our studio is going in this direction. Ana (Ana Milena Hernández Palacios) and I hope that slowly people will understand that you have to produce locally and that what goes well in one place is not necessarily good everywhere. As far as the interior design is concerned, I don’t have the feeling that something is changing, but we hope it will. I think there will be changes in materials, for example the development of antibacterial agents, but it takes time and money. And then we will have to see if the market will be willing to pay more for a product that incorporates the results of research.

But your work is not for the mass market...
Yes we work for a select clientele, and in fact a price difference might not be a problem. We’ll see.

Are you thinking of making limited editions?
No. I’m thinking of the Too Much chair in particular, which has an aesthetic that not many people can appreciate. I’m thinking for example of the sensitivity that there is in Milan and that is not so widespread. So I think it will actually be a limited edition without us setting a limit. It’s an expensive chair but it’s made entirely in Spain with quality materials, this is important for us. We are looking for a balance between quality, authenticity and price.

Looking at the chair, I immediately thought of Sottsass, and Postmodernism, am I wrong?
No! Right now we are looking a lot at Italian design from the 1970s but also at the emotional dimension of Memphis and Alessandro Mendini. If we had lived in those years we would have been part of it. There is also a very graphic side to our work and for this reason Ettore Sottsass is a source of inspiration.

This year we missed Milano Design Week. What did it mean for you?
It is the most important event in the world and for us it is both work and holiday. We were supposed to present the new seating collection, including Too Much, at Alcova. That’s why we worked on the fittings you see. We know that what we would have achieved in Milan we will not get it so easily, the moment of the exhibition is also sale and acquisition of customers. Now it’s like we’re throwing the collection up in the air, everything will be slower. Talking to people, seeing the objects from life, touching them is something totally different. The advantage is that for two months we focused on the collection, if we had come to Milan we would not have had the time. So a small project evolved and became a brand, our brand, with different products in terms of type and also in terms of numbers. We think, for example, that the Ball Pot vase can make bigger numbers than the chair.

It seems to me that the aesthetics of these fittings and products are more pushed than the work you have done so far.
In fact it is. We have been working for a long time in a more artistic direction, independent from the orders, which defines more a style than the possession of an object. We are also working on materials that were no longer at the center of research such as wood, ceramics. In a few days we will also launch ceramic products, we are trying to use materials that are more respectful of nature.