MOROCCO IS ACCELERATING! feature - Alstom
MOROCCO IS ACCELERATING! feature - Alstom
MOROCCO IS ACCELERATING! feature - Alstom
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46<br />
words and design<br />
�<br />
can project yourself into the future without<br />
being interested in the past and vice versa.<br />
X. Allard: Why work with one company<br />
rather than with another?<br />
Ora Ïto: To start with, I have to like the brand.<br />
Not just its name, but what it triggers off<br />
in a fragment of a second in my imagination.<br />
I follow my instinct here. If I need<br />
to make an effort to ‘see’ images,<br />
if I don’t feel inspired, then I turn it down!<br />
Then there’s the brand’s history.<br />
Behind the great brands, there’s often<br />
a man in a barn or a workshop, hammering,<br />
cutting out, folding, welding, sowing…<br />
Because he was the best in his fi eld, his<br />
‘little business’ grew. He then transmitted<br />
his know-how and his skills as an<br />
artisan become a part of the consumer<br />
society. I fi nd this fascinating.<br />
When I was approached by Fred Farrugia,<br />
I wasn’t particularly interested in make-up.<br />
But I liked the idea of the palette and<br />
I invented the nomad kit. For this project,<br />
I spent a lot of time watching women’s<br />
movements when they are putting<br />
on make-up. Movements, the way<br />
in which an object is held or handled,<br />
are extremely important.<br />
X. Allard: Do brands expect their history<br />
to be revisited?<br />
Ora Ïto: They expect me to fi nd the next<br />
phase, to provide my understanding<br />
of the period and above all a capacity<br />
to project them into the future. I like the idea<br />
of an artist who does not always have his<br />
hammer, chisel, clay or brush, but who meets<br />
astrophysicists or engineers… I love going<br />
into the R&D offi ce of a company which has<br />
asked me to work for them and studying<br />
new materials or composites. These then<br />
become my creative tools.<br />
X. Allard: Should the designer keep<br />
in the background and let the brand occupy<br />
centre stage?<br />
Ora Ïto: Not necessarily. Being a designer<br />
is also about having your own identity.<br />
The objects that I create, if you look at them<br />
independently, are completely different<br />
to each other. But they all have a common<br />
style. My style is to economise in the use<br />
of materials, to favour simplicity, the<br />
‘almost nothing’. I hate piling up concepts:<br />
the best content is a single idea strong<br />
enough to accomplish all its functions.<br />
The search for this simple idea is complex.<br />
This is what I call ‘simplexity’. I demand