Couture Club: Riflessi

The Essenzia sideboard has long been a staple of the Riflessi collection. Its unadulterated silhouette celebrates formal purity and geometry and it comes in a variety of arrangements, colours and finishes. So far, so Made in Italy; design pieces reduced to minimal forms, expertly balanced and finished with finesse. But Essenzia has also been transformed by Riflessi into a Pollockian-style canvas, with abstract trails and splatters of fine epoxy resin streaking across the front, applied by the hand of a skilled artisan. It’s the classic white T-shirt of the cabinetry world made into a unique, emblazoned statement piece. It’s a shift of gears, a turning up of the volume. And it has the feel of the runway, of couture, of individualisation.

There is, in fact, nothing new in Riflessi’s embrace of decorative craft to embellish otherwise rigorous, industrial pieces; it’s not even the first time that Essenzia has found itself as an artist’s blank canvas. Riflessi – which began life when current CEO Luigi Fammiano took over a small mirror-making company in Abruzzo in 1990 and established the Riflessi Research and Development Centre – has always been committed to making furniture that blends innovation and craft. It loves a clean line, but also likes to metaphorically bend it with decorative interventions, harvested from near-extinct but persisting craft skills, sourced locally. What is new, is that it now has an audience that is ready to strike out and mix bold artistic statements into its interiors.

Riflessi’s offer of finely crafted, functional shapes with the option of individualising artistic embellishment is an approach that embraces customisation, one that is readily aligned with the country’s sartorial scene – little surprise when you learn that Fammiano hails from Naples, the epicentre of the peninsula’s tailoring traditions. For him, the art of interior design is very much like the art of dressing. ‘Our “sartorial” approach is active on two levels,’ he explains. ‘While constantly researching to expand our proposal of new, embellished details for a piece, we also allow the client to chose between an increasingly ample variety of finishes, shapes, materials for much of our core collection, starting from a “basic” proposal, to better meet their needs and personality.’

The urge to design with choice built-in has never been more on point than now, when the design world finds itself treading a line between feeding the desire for individuality and the minimising of wasteful, unnecessary newness. Riflessi’s most recent releases all lean on this approach of choice, variation, and adaptation. The curvilinear Meghan chair, designed by the CarlesiTonelli studio, transforms according to its upholstery, which can be chosen from a vast range of textiles, including the new high-performing Ischia and Tailor ranges, while the Living table series, a Riflessi classic, has been refreshed with two new colourful tabletops to choose from, Malaga and Giada, both made from glass that has been given a marble finish. The latter is available with a barrel or rectangular-shaped top, fixed or extendible, and comes in a large variety of dimensions. The iconic Cubric cabinet, meanwhile, has gained two new complexions: a hand-brushed glaze of cobalt blue, and a manually applied titanium-like finish. The new textural colours bring the piece right up to date.

‘The recent launches all have the “fil rouge” of proposing a unique twist on a practical, everyday element, giving the possibility of choosing between a selection of special finishes and details alongside unexpected versions of functional pieces,’ says Fammiano. ‘In the last few years, we have seen growing demand for customised details from both people who want something unique for their homes and from architects taking care of hotel and restaurant interiors, where it is particularly important to have pieces that can be practical but with a distinctive character.’

Time, perhaps, for us all to step out of the comfort zone and countenance a little more couture in our decor.

© Architonic