The added value in the exhibition

Elena Caponi, a well-known stylist, shares with us how to enhance a stand or an advertising campaign by inserting objects of design. What criteria guide your choices? For each customer, I do bespoken research and I try to find inspiration to create a project that best presents their product in an original way, but that also somewhat reflects my style. Can you explain more about the type of research you carry out? I research styles and themes where the iconographic element is of primary importance. Then when I define the mood, I continue with my search for objects. What is the added value of your work inside an exhibition space? Concentrating the styling in a few elements to leave room for the product and the public's inspirations. What are the macro-trends in design today? Looking at design today, one notices in both major brands with famous designers, and in independent young designers, a return to precious materials that are currently a cut above: we are seeing a re-interpretation of stones, from thin almost transparent marbles, to macramé, to the search for stones with particular veins with very warm colours that look good with “new” metals, that are just bronzes, brasses, silvers, all burnished and treated, so that they lose the shine we were used to seeing up until a few decades ago. Crystal is making a comeback, as are precious leathers that are also subject to new treatments to give them a distressed or live-in look. There are also re-visitations to poor materials like "cementine", old tiles in cement, which today are being reinterpreted by famous designers with totally original colours and patterns. Even wallpapers have undergone an incredible renewal. Forget about the classic designs. Today there are artistic subjects, or modern trompe l'oeil, imitations of old wood, old walls, and extra-large vintage motifs. But above all there is a return to the “Great Masters”, with re-editions of Giò Ponti, Albini, Mangirotti, Zanuso and Mollino. Could you give us an idea of what type of object you would choose for each one? I would select a vintage piece by one of the “Great Masters”, even if it is small, but timeless, and then I would choose young designers. How much is your work influenced by fashion trends? Lots! Fashion is always one step ahead. Just think that fashion collections are presented one year in advance, and so created long before that.