Towards eternity

First of all, is there a difference between the concept of excitement and surprise?
Put simply, a surprise is something that happens just once and is unlikely to happen again. Excitement, on the other hand, is something more complex, it might crop up again, and in theory it could last a lifetime. Surprise also has a powerful physical aspect – it is almost always accompanied by a reaction from the body, while excitement is mainly spiritual and always shows itself through intellectual channels.

The difference between excitement and surprise can be seen clearly in modern society, where people are mainly focused on surprising rather than exciting. Is this a need dictated by a general way of life – perhaps we don’t want to get too involved on an emotional level?
If I offer a product using an advertising slogan based on surprise, the product and the brand will always be linked to that specific situation. If, on the other hand, the product is offered in a way that can excite, the message becomes deeper and is not limited to the product in itself. It involves all the values that a brand can transmit. An advertising slogan based on surprise only has a short-term impact, while an ad that can arouse a strong emotional impact, even if it needs a long time to establish itself, will always have very long-lasting effects. Of course, it’s much easier to produce an advertising campaign based purely on the principle of surprise.

How can you create excitement through an industrial process?
Our products excite, but that’s not just due to the object itself. In our case, the product is a symbol of a complex process, it reflects our history. Some time ago I was in Paris, at Karl Lagerfeld’s show for Chanel. I think the event was organised in a very intelligent way – in the centre of the circular catwalk was a huge wooden replica of Coco Chanel’s famous jacket, a symbol of how the company’s present and future are always linked to its past. It was no coincidence that at the end of the show, the models all walked back into that huge jacket. Our products, like the clothes at that show, are always linked to the story of our company and the people who made it what it is, their hopes and dreams. My responsibility towards new designers, salesmen and workers is to keep moving in this direction. That’s something which is inextricably linked to the excitement that an object can transmit. The emotions which an object can arouse always come from its history, its context, its ability to relate to other situations. An object in itself is nothing – it’s excitement that makes objects, and the situations they can create, eternal.

How can we preserve this ability to create objects that excite?
Behind every project there’s always an awareness of our own being, and what that has created. We introduce our designers to our past products, our factories, how we work, and the surrounding context. We try to explain what it means to design in tandem with architecture, because our products only become complete, even from an emotional point of view, when they are part of a context. An emotion is never complete if you just think about the project – it is only completed if you can put it into context. But we should also think about two other things: art and craftsmanship. We produce mass-made objects in line with the definition of design, but we try to make sure that they embody that spirit, that ability to excite, which only art can have. It is no coincidence that many of our products are created in artisanal, almost artistic environments, and only then are they reproduced on a large scale. When we reproduce them, we try to preserve that original feeling.

Today, almost everyone wants instant celebrity status, those fifteen minutes of fame promised by Andy Warhol, using the tired old mechanism of surprise. How can you tell a designer to focus just on the emotional aspect?
We look for designers with great depth, who can understand the value of emotion and apply it to the field of design. Professionals who can interpret and respect our history and bring it up to date. Designers who know how to work with time – the past, the present, and the future.

Interview by Marco Muniz