This article is part of our special Design Report previewing 2022 Milan Design Week.
Success in the design world depends more on the image than on the product. High-quality furniture and fabrics can set a business apart, but if they’re sold with a good story, that’s even better.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that two exhibitors at this year’s Salone del Mobile are pushing their company’s compelling stories just as strongly as the textiles they introduce in Milan. In both, the story is personal, though colored by the deep traditions of the countries they call home.
For Hosoo, in Japan, the accompanying story goes back to 1688, when the company was founded in Kyoto’s historic Nishijin district. Its chairman and president, Masataka Hosoo, boasts that he is the 12th generation of his family to run a company that started out making textiles and kimonos for the then Imperial Court and has maintained a position as one of the most influential manufacturers of woven goods.
Around the world, in Bogotá, Colombia, Verdi comes from a background that is shorter-lived, but equally imbued with a nationalistic vibe. Carlos Vera Dieppa, father of the company’s current creative director, Tomás Vera, began honing new carpet-making techniques in 1995, working with weavers from the raw sacks used to transport coffee beans.
“In a way you can say that every carpet you see at Verdi is an evolution of a Colombian coffee bag,” said Mr. Vera in a video call from his studio in Bogotá. “There are definitely few things more Colombian than a coffee bag.”
Mr. Vera’s father invented hand-operated looms that he could use to add metal threads to carpets. Gold, copper and silver became the raw materials of his trade.
“But he closed his workshop in 2007 and basically sold everything in parts,” explains his son. “Then he died in 2010 and then I decided to re-record his work.”
Led by Mr. Vera has grown the company to three locations, where it has turned its textiles into household items, such as the fabrics used to make the new line of wallcoverings it is showing at the design fair; fashion accessories, including highly stylized handbags based on traditional Colombian mochila bucket bags; and works of art that are purely decorative.
But Verdi’s reputation remains rooted in its signature practice of relying on both natural fibers and metals. Products include school bags made from baby alpaca wool and silver-plated yarn, and rugs made from 100 percent copper. The company also makes goods from horsehair and plantain fiber sourced from the Amazon region, and recent designs have been inspired by various objects associated with Colombian culture, such as peacocks, coral snakes, and emeralds.
Representing the country well is important, said Mr. Vera, because Verdi is the first Colombian studio to appear as a solo exhibitor at the Milan fair.
“When it comes to high-end design, it’s usually conquered by the European market, or the Italian market – or the French when it comes to weaving,” he said. “Verdi is our take on Latin American high-end design.”
Like Verdi, Hosoo has broadened its business plan under its current leadership. That’s partly out of necessity, Mr. Hosoo said. Kimonos have gone out of style as traditional ceremonial clothing in Japan, and the company had to find new outlets for its wares. It decided to look internationally.
One of the recent innovations: developing a loom that can make textiles up to 150 centimeters wide, the current global standard for textile manufacturing and much larger than the 40 centimeters that its traditional looms produced.
That enabled the company to expand its customer base outside of Japan. One of its main clients is the fashion house Dior, which uses Hosoo textiles for fabrics and upholstery in its retail showrooms around the world.
“One thing we are careful about is not normalizing thought processes that have evolved over many, many years,” said Mr. Hosoo, speaking in a video call from his company’s headquarters in Kyoto. If something exists just because it’s standard practice, he said, “it needs to be challenged and it needs to be changed.”
Hosoo’s presence at the Milan fair allows it to introduce products that stem from its evolved mindset, which blends old expectations of sophistication with the current reality of supply and demand. Front and center is the Heritage Nova line, featuring textiles made from hemp and silk, inspired by one of the company’s original canvases from the 17th century.
Mr Hosoo said his company still holds on to traditions and demonstrates a responsibility to produce products worthy of its origin in the service of the aristocracy. It still uses a 20-step weaving process that the Nishijin region is known for and that includes the specialized use of haku, fine gold and silver washi shredded paper woven with other fibers to create finished textiles.
Like Verdi, it produces almost all of its wares. Hosoo’s products are made in the small in-house factory or purchased from employees within a few miles of the Kyoto headquarters.
The leaders of both companies said they could save money by outsourcing production, moving work from their major cities to rural areas where labor costs are lower. But controlling local production “gives us more flexibility and expands our way of being more creative and innovative,” said Mr. Hosoo.
It also helps to maintain a balance between the ancient, handcrafted, locally inspired style that frames the origin stories of the companies with their goals of doing business globally.
“We are a team of 80 direct employees, with about 45 artisans, and we also work with 30 families in different parts of Colombia and Latin America who source our natural fibers,” said Mr. vera.
That makes his company big enough to serve the world, but intimate enough to stay with the story.
“In short,” he said, “that fusion between contemporary and artisanal is what defines us.”