Roberto Gasparotta, the art director of Italian company Venini invited Swiss design studio Atelier Oï to experiment with traditional artistic craft material, glass, combined with leather and Alcantara fabric. As a result, designers at Atelier Oï created the Stelle Filanti, a marvellous hand-blown glass diffuser suspended in a stunningly intricate web of leather strips. The dramatic effect is twofold: the contrasting elements create an an intriguing mix of solids, voids and textures, and the netting casts bold geometric shadows.
“The concept of transformation was at the heart of our inspiration for this project. Studies of the material and experimentation drove us to search for new forms, contrasts and appeal. The starting point was a small octagonal scrap of natural leather. With clever cutting based on the manual art of découpage, we turned it into a sort of garland that unfolds in the air and acquires mass as it reacts to the weight and light of the diffuser.” explains the designers.
The light flows fluidly upwards and downwards, illuminating the leather sculpture. The colour of the glass diffuser, when lit, interacts with the strips that encase it and the light spreads out in a decreasing dance of progressively blurred intensity, like the streaks of light that trace the path of a shooting star when it crosses the sky.
+ Venini