Archive of the Category 'Gold'

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This short video is just a preview of a documentary film on DesignTaleStudio we are currently working on, a trip through the techniques and creativity of our ceramic art masters. Watching, yet again, the creation of a Parete Gold in the video has been a very emotional experience we immediately felt the need to share with you: never mind if the images on this clip are still “raw and crude”.

The filming has been carried out in our laboratory in Salvaterra and it shows our team at work with gold, clay and other powders to transform a porcelain stoneware slab in a real work of art: unique, irreproducible and authentic, in the wake of the great Italian ceramic tradition.

I have endeavoured to re-elaborate on certain information and opinions that I put forward as ideas to reflect on the way which, today, we take for granted things that “we need” in our everyday lives.

In a world that, we can casually say, is changing very quickly, and in particular where globalization and the world wide web have effectively turned market forces upside-down, it sometimes seems that we lose the significance of the concept of “mass market”, while, increasingly, it is the individual or consumer who creates his own personal micro-market.

It is increasingly difficult to identify groups of consumers with homogenous tastes (the classic “target” often cited by marketing experts) while the “EGO”, so dear to those who are, or who pretend to be psychologists, is back on the scene and, are effectively merely individuals with their own creativity and their own tastes and who influence or inspire companies to create new products in every field.

Today, people seem less embarrassed (even proud) to show themselves as they really are, and they tend to steadfastly refuse (to only then strangely accept them… but this is another story) mass standardization and therefore, at the same time deny, in buying the object, the “ready-made” styles. Effectively, today people are less influenced when choosing, they are less embarrassed to mix different styles, they choose one brand today and then snub it tomorrow, they do not fall for trends but observe them, they collect only what they like and, more frequently than ever, they create.
One very interesting thing is the fact that, especially thanks to the ease in which information is “globally” gathered, that is not restricted by national boundaries but, not even taking into consideration other variables, individuals have an ever increasing consumer behaviour that transcends nationality, age, tradition and cultural constraints.

To keep “on track” with the theme of this site, I believe I can permit myself to say, also based on what I have read in the Press, that products and services which we consider “a luxury” today can be seen carrying different connotations in respect to the past, and that even items that were previously not labelled this way, can now be considered “a luxury”. In fact, today luxury can also be thought as:

• No longer ostentatious or status symbol, but an object linked to the individual and therefore takes its value from the unique and intense experience of every person who lives the object (even if this is almost always based on socially shared values)
• Emotion combined with innovation
• Personalization, with objects that are (or appear to be) exclusively made for me

In this light, it can also be said that, at least for a few, the search for perfection pursued by progress is not important, but they give ever increasing importance to the value of nature, slow lifestyles, real “things” and, because of this, not perfect. Hand-crafted products are always different from one another, there is always a slight imperfection or defects which make them UNIQUE and absolutely irreproducible.

People, who today prefer to not hide their own “imperfections”, but who instead value their own complexities, are those who are perfectly mirroring this attitude even in the things they buy. Identifying oneself in what one buys also means the personalization of the object, refusing, as we have said, the standardization, the bias, the styles “dictated” by others, the status symbols and, in contrast, the desire to express and surround oneself with things that represent us, to share with others and be enriched by such a sharing of personal and different tastes and values.

Repubblica.it today carried the news story, along with a video, on the latest extravaganza by famous Japanese jeweller Ginza Tanaka: a bikini made up entirely of 24 carat gold, worth an estimated 82 thousand dollars.

It is well know that Japan is the very centre of the luxury market: alone, it covers 40% of the segment. And Tanaka is not new to such acts of provocation, one only has to think back to his handbag made of platinum and encrusted with 2,182 diamonds (valued at 1.63 million dollars), or his Christmas tree of solid gold (21 kilos, valued at 850,000 dollars). In contrast to its predecessors, however, it is my opinion that the shock value of the object-bathing costume is based on at least 3 peculiar aspects.

Firstly, it is a garment whose primary use means it constantly exposed to the sun and to prolonged contact with water, therefore, intrinsically, it is likely to deteriorate and lose value. On top of this, the size of a bathing costume is also proportional to the size of the body that wears it: does then, when the dress size goes up, the price also go up? In fact, quiet apart from even the most expensive everyday fabrics, even the slightest extra amount of gold in the garment should lead to a significant increase in the production costs. Finally, seeing that fashion in the first half of 2007 is going through a “golden age”, we can see a certain amount of provocation in Tanaka’s idea, a provocation even directly aimed at the designers in fashion houses, as if to say: you refer to fabric and aesthetic effects as “gold”, while I am actually a “golden artist”, I have the right to actually use it in one of my projects, without the need of surrogate fabrics.

It is also no surprise that the gold bikini has set tongues wagging in the world of blogs, for example, in respect to its effective use potentials, and joking about what it would cost for a size to fit the larger woman; but amongst all this analysis, it is the morality that lies behind such an idea that raises the biggest question marks. However, for those who wish to make a splash on the beach in the summer of 2007… Ginza Tanaka’s on-line store is just a click away.

Technorati Tags: Gold, Tanaka, Ginza Tanaka, bikini, fashion, summer 2007, swimsuit

Those who in recent weeks have been lucky enough to walk past Piazza Garibaldi in Parma could not have failed to pause for at least one minute to admire the sculpture by Giuliano Vangi on display under the Portici del Grano.

Amongst the works on display in the Piazza (the main part of the exhibition in the nearby Galleria San Ludovico), “Il Nodo” is without doubt the sculpture which attracts the most admiring attention from passers-by. It is a stainless steel and gold sculpture depicting two young people, one male, one female, who are running, together towards the future. And it is the use of gold that, in my opinion, is the most interesting aspect of the sculpture with respect to this blog.

Whereas the steel moulds the sculpture in its shapes and forms, making it very recognisable thanks to its highly shiny and reflective surface, the gold can only be seen upon examining the sculpture up close, as it has been used in very small quantities to emphasise and give greater value to the details on the faces and of the veil the female figure is holding in her hand. A very refined use of gold therefore, almost “spiritual”; as in the words of art critic Luciano Caramel, a “rarefaction of everyday life”, a long way from the visual noise and the idea of flamboyance which often distinguish the golden objects around us.

It is very difficult to show a photo of “Il Nodo”, as its colours and forms change when viewed from different angles. But, perhaps because of this, it is easy to feel moved and not realise how time is flying by when one is viewing the sculpture. There is still time until June 10 to view the work yourself, in Parma.

As announced in the previous post, from now on this blog will habitually launch discussion themes which will be the focus of the posts for a short period of time: themes associated with design, architecture, creativity, the market place… and obviously ceramics.

The first theme we wish to concentrate on is the use of precious metal inspired textures in design, in particular gold. A choice that seems to have split the world in two halves: those who see gold as the divine, absolute and infallible material and those who consider it merely as a symbol of opulence, excess and the total desire to be flamboyant.

Gold has always been considered the “cherry on the cake” and golden accessories as something that communicate importance and uniqueness. Being able to work gold is a prerogative of master craftsmen traditions; having and showing gold is a sign of riches and distinguishes those who can from those who “cannot”.

But in the Spring 2007 it seems that we are witnessing a mutation of the aesthetic character of gold. Mainstream fashion is dominated by gold, all one needs to do is look in a shop window display. Actually I was reading on a recent issue of Repubblica Affari & Finanza that every 37 minutes a gold coloured pair of sneakers or other “precious” texture is sold on eBay.

For two famously controversial designers like Dolce & Gabbana gold is the “colour of positivity, of the sun, of luxury and the new dolce vita”, with such a strong communicative potential to even inspire the creation of the first concept restaurant D&G in Milan. Once we had decided to design Gold and Platinum Pareti d’Autore, desired to create a luxurious, extreme object, purposely not for all that could represent an archetype of elegance and absolute prestige but we were well aware of running the risk of falling into kitsch.

Our Pareti are not simply “gold-plated” with a varnishing process: they contain pure 24 carat gold and because of this they are produce in a limited number as if they were pieces of jewelry. We reflected at length on the oxymoron of creating a product purposefully with no obvious market but at the same time fashionable. And we constantly struggled against the unpredictable nature of an expensive material rarely used in the ceramic industry.

Today, many designers choose gold to communicate a flavor of excess of the new riches of the emerging world markets, but at the same time the “old” western bourgeoisie that has always been familiar with it and continues to consider it a prime element of its lifestyle.

So, isn’t gold THE status symbol par excellence, used by the emerging classes of all generations to express their recently achieved social standing? or, over time has it become a cheap and trivial finishing only for those who are happy to express their personality with something shiny and expensive? Is it possible to design elegant and refined spaces using gold, or are we destined to descend into flamboyance?

We will discuss these themes in the weeks to come, listening to the testimony of personalities who had already pondered this issue at length.

Technorati Tags: Gold, DesignTaleStudio, Dolce&Gabbana, D&G, fashion