“Naples is not just a city,” says Domitilla Dardi, cofounder of independent design fairEdit Napoli, “It’s a state of mind.”Editreturned to Naples’s infamously frenetic streets in its second edition this October, gathering a multidisciplinary mix of designers, artisans, and independent manufacturers in the Complesso di San Domenico Maggiore, a 13th-century church burrowed within the historic center.
Alongside cofounder Emilia Petruccelli, a design consultant, buyer, and entrepreneur, Dardi, who is also design curator atRome’s MAXXI Museum, launched Edit as a way of connecting independent designers and artisans with the industry at large, settling on Naples as a home base for its deeply entrenched local craft traditions and wealth of small-scale artisans. “The fair focuses on what we call editorial design,” Dardi explains of the concept, which covers craftspeople working in wood, weavers, ceramic companies, stone specialists, glassblowers, and designers of architectural materials like terrazzo and tiles, among others. “Each product must be of the utmost quality, but be available in editions—which means mixing both craft and technology.”
More than 70 exhibitors from across Europe turned up despite tightening travel restrictions. Larger scale producers partnered with the fair under the banner of Edit Cult, which paired designers with historic Italian companies, installing the fruits of their collaborations in some of the city’s most enchanting locales.The Filangieri Museum, bursting with Neapolitan artifacts, hosted a layer cake of the Spanish designer Jaime Hayon’s colorfully cartoonish ceramic vessels. Meanwhile, the city’s archaeological museum showed new work by Andrea Anastasio in partnership withCeramica Gatti 1928, and the world’s oldest opera theater, theTeatro San Carlo, set the stage for color-blocked sofas byMartino GamperandMoroso.
As beguiling as the big-ticket exhibition may have been, the real draw of Edit is the wealth of under-the-radar talent who choose the fair as a launching point. A highlight was emerging producer Medulum, based in Veneto, who showed a series of pieces by young designers Accardi Buccheri, Serena Confalonieri,Debonademeo, andCara \ Davide. The latter designed a particularly compelling shelf, table, and bench in oversize, Tetris-like volumes rendered in laminated composite wood, using techniques perfected by Medulum founder Diego Zanchettin’s 40-year-old family workshop in Veneto.
Independent galleries also made a good showing. Among them, Benevento-based摇摆设计画廊, which showed an inventive series of collaborations between up-and-coming young designers and traditional Italian artisanal producers. Venetian designerLucia Massariwas paired with textile companyTappezzerie Druettato create a colorful plush stool that imitates the effect of wooden inlay (down to the wood grain). Roman Giovanni Botticelli was teamed up with sixth generation acetate producerMazzucchelli 1849to create a pearlescent room divider that resembles sheets of crushed seashells, alongside marble ashtrays byGhezzi Agerskovand a sinuous polished wooden table and mirror by ParisianGarance Vallèeand Falegnameria Luigi De Mizio. A similarly spirited collaboration, between architectAline Asmar d’Ammanand marble producer Laboratorio Morseletto, resulted in an interesting series of textured marble furnishings made up of various types of Vicenza stone.
