Philippe Starck says democratic design paying off

MILAN (AP) ― Philippe Starck says his philosophy of democratic design, or quality pieces at accessible prices, is paying off in the ongoing economic crisis.

“People are intelligent. They want quality. They want a high level of creativity, but everyone will have less money,” Starck said in an interview during the Milan Furniture Fair, which ended Sunday.

The times, he said, favor the kind of creative impulse that led to his decades-long collaboration with the Italian design company Kartell, which specializes in plastic contemporary furniture.

“This was my intuition 40 years ago when I started design,” he said. “Now we have the reward of the political and philosophical choice.”

In that mood, the mainstays of this year’s Milan Furniture Fair, the industry’s premier event, were not about costly redecorating. Instead, designers showcased a few distinctive pieces that inspire and give new impulse to a room, as well as technological advances to make life easier.

Starck presented “Miss Less,” a glossy plastic chair formed on a slim backrest atop a square base, as well as a pair of aluminum candlestick holders that when placed together appear to be lost in an embrace called “Abbraciaio,” and light plastic document holders named “Archive.” Something for everyone. The French designer, who has a home on one of Venice’s islands, also lent his iconic “Mademoiselle” chair to design newcomer Lenny Kravitz, who clad the plastic chair in python, fur and leather.

Despite the persistent crisis, which has seen Italian furniture revenues contract by 5 percent to $20 billion in 2011 from 2010, requests for space at the enormous Rho Fairgrounds outside Milan outstripped availability by 19,000 square meters, organizers said. The event attracted some 300,000 visitors with events that spill over into showrooms, museums and design spaces throughout the city, which gives the event a high-design street fair feel.

It is not just furniture-makers competing for attention of the design community.

The Tumi luggage and accessories brand chose the weeklong event to create a buzz around a new line of lightweight hard luggage designed by New York-based Israeli designer Dror Benshetrit, who spent 18 months making prototypes. The sleek Dror collection features angular cut surfaces, giving the pieces a modern aesthetic that also employs an engineering trick to give added resistance.

London-based artist Jules Wright got the chance to test out the luggage on a five-country European tour filming a short film that looped at the collection’s unveiling at Milan’s Museum of Science and Technology.

“They were light, and we had them absolutely rammed,” she said.

In a more traditional vein, Knoll premiered a new line of contemporary lounge furniture that it commissioned from French designers Pierre Beucler and Jean-Christophe Poggioli of Architecture & Associes, who brought an architect‘s sense of space to furniture design.

The pair created a cinematographic collection of sofas, armchairs and chaise lounges that maintain a comfortable softness within a disciplined line. The designers said they spent months testing the cushions to get the correct firmness for the seats and softness for the backrests.