Ilaria Ferraro
A hidden garden in which there is the most fragrant of rose gardens;
The creaking of wooden floorboards beneath the feet;
A Caravaggesque light hits upon the veins in the marble
Pachyderms and multi-coloured turbans.
Can a lightning bolt hit upon some crumbling old ruins, illuminating them? Yes, if they are those very ones of the house, in the heart of Milan that Gio Ponti is said to have designed, in 1936.
By pure chance, Ilaria Ferraro and Steve Toueg just happened to come across this hidden and unpretentious jewel in 2015 and fell completely in love with it.
Ilaria undertook her training in the world of fashion and design and Steve works in the family textile business. Studies, therefore, that were a balanced blend of creativity and production.
An intermational clientèle, promoting everything that is Made in Italy. An architecture studio and tailor-made interior design products. In addition to this, the studio creates carpets woven with the most special of threads, as well as furniture and textiles – a sophisticated taste that harks back to the Roaring 1920’s, Art Deco, Rationalism and Oriental influences. All of this is TED MILANO.
The entrance doors into the studio – in glass and wood – are exceptionally elegant. A small stairway carries you up to this Wunderkammer: a design boutique but, first of all, a home in which you can root through a dream-like selection of fabrics, textiles and wallpaper. From Cole & Son to Pierre Frey and Etro to Fornasetti.
Handmade knotted carpets, precious yarns, a certain knowledge of and devotion to the past as well as to innovation and eclecticism. An exquisite flower garden possesses a water basin and an old mosaic. A secret room – unsuspectingly round, is covered in wallpaper that depicts a golden sea inhabited by silver fish. Each and every detail exudes the charisma and the glamour of its creator: Ilaria.
Dear Ilaria, tell us about your Sicilian roots….do you think your childhood in Sicily and your family life led you towards a career in the creative world?
Since I was a young girl, I always spent my days designing textiles and clothes. I was always fascinated by that world. I don’t even think that any member of my family actually drew me in that particular direction. It was something innate, it sprung out of me all on its own.
Anyway, I saw Sicily for the most part on summer holidays, as a young girl, but I rediscovered it, above all, when I was an adult. At that stage, I was able to appreciate its architecture, its history and the beauty of its landscapes.
What change in the past took you from the world of fashion towards design?
The key to another world has always been MATERIAL, textiles. In Italy, a career as an interior designer hadn’t yet become a recognised and established work. That is why, initially, I had directed my love for textiles towards studying fashion. Anyway, I never really liked this sector, and I still don’t like it, really: the swift way that fashion destroys itself, all too quickly, with nothing left over. This has always left me feeling dissatisfied and striving, at the same time, to retrieve some sort of sense, to seek something more. I like looking back at the past. I like going deeper into the history of a brand, its techniques in terms of how they work by hand, the “life” that the piece of fabric has undergone. The history of Fortuny, for example, has been the emblem of both the textile as well as the fashion worlds. Thanks to my fashion studies I started designing fabrics and I soon realised that that was my greatest passion, the world of décor and furnishings.
My first work in fashion was some consultancy work for a small textile editor aimed at the production of a range of textiles. A whole new world opened up in front of me. I approached one of the very first fabric showrooms in Milan. It’s name was “Il Posto delle fragole” and I fell madly in love with it. Since this first collaboration, I have understood that this has indeed been the world that I have wanted to live in every single day. Since the speed and the intemperance of fashion had distanced me from its world what more is there, then, than building and furnishing a house, awakening a sense in you that you are creating something solid that will still be here long after you have gone?
My first real project, thirteen years ago, was for a building developer in the Veneto who built houses that he wanted to furnish in order to sell them and rent them. He had been one of the first businessmen who understood that furnished houses were sold or rented much more easily. The budget was relatively low. I spent whole days at IKEA and it was definitely a wonderful testing ground.
What is the poetical element of your style? What type of house do you want to design for your clients? How much is the psychological aspect of the relationship with your clients?
A house that is decorated. When I flicked through interior magazines what really struck me was houses that were full of colour, decorated. Every house is a new project. Most of my clients become friends. There is an important psychological dynamic in our work. Empathy is fundamental as well as being able to fathom out the dynamics that there are within a couple or a family. You need to be able to inspire and win over their trust. You need to be patient and to succeed in interpreting the desires and requirements of clients who might not even be aware of having them. Going into a house and imagining it just as the client would wish to “feel” and what he or she would want to “see” inside it is fundamental. All of this may be summarised in the ability to listen.
Steve is an entertainer. I reflect and ponder more. I listen and observe: we balance each other out. I am not fond of those studios that force their wills upon you. I like listening to the client completely and let myself be driven by their demands. What brings together all of the houses that we have designed is the fact that they respect the historical context of the building.
I have fallen in love with your studio. Tell us about all of the steps you embarked upon in order to renovate and furnish it. How long did it take and how many options did you sift through before turning it into this jewel? How much devotion was there for Gio Ponti and how much innovation?
Steve fell in love with the size of the place. He considered changing it into a home but I didn’t feel like it could become a house where we would actually live. It felt more like a studio to me. After it had been built, the house had never been lived in. Everything had been kept perfectly despite the fact that it had been abandoned. I designed the tables, the bookshelves, starting off from what was there already. I began with Rationalist lines and then, all of a sudden, I started on curved lines. I choose pink marble and I wanted it to be consistent with the age in which it had been built. I did not want to turn it upside down. The restoration work took six months so it didn’t take too much time, really. We didn’t want it to look like a textile showroom or an architect’s studio but to look like a home where we could welcome clients and friends. Degournay fell in love with it. They had also been looking for a showroom in Milan and so this was the reason why our collaboration started.
The garden was a wild jungle. For now, we have left it to itself but have taken care of the rose garden, a little run-down but so magnificently full of blooms. In the other houses on the street there have always been so many palm trees. They were highly fashionable in the 1930’s and early 1940’s when those houses were built. This influenced me and thus soon became the inspiration behind my Palm Collection of carpets.
Since the beginning of the pandemic and up to the present time the house has now assumed and will perform new functions and purposes. What piece of advice would you feel like giving to people who, in this period of forced smart-working, are thinking about how they could carve out appropriate new areas in their own homes?
Learn how to make the most of staying at home. Separate, if possible, the areas dedicated to work and those dedicated to daily life. Place maybe only one piece of furniture in a small portion of a room where you work so that you can switch off, close a door and set out areas and times where you will need to be doing other things. Sometimes, you only require a screen or a curtain. I have worked for a long time at home, and I think that it is essential for you to manage to dedicate each and every space of your house to its actual function so that you can enjoy it as much as possible.
Fashion and style are a forceful part of your life. Which aspects of fashion fascinate you the most and which ones do you like playing around with?
In fashion, those fashion houses that always stay loyal to themselves. Prada has always been a brand that has never only followed the logics of the market. And yet, it has always dictated the way it has “done” its fashion. Remaining loyal to yourselves and refusing to stoop to compromises is the characteristic that I most admire in fashion.
Thanks to your work, your talent and your elegance you have achieved a large amount of success in the social network world. How do you judge these means of communication for your work at a human level?
You have to use them positively and never in a negative way, lecturing and preaching and making judgements. I want to be associated with something that is positive and let people gaze upon beauty. I do not want to impose anything. I would like to let people discover the value of things that are worth being discovered; culture, a love for things that stays with us (and after us) in time, the difference between quality and fast shopping. The key word here is awareness. You can choose the low-cost pouf by Westwing and then later a unique vintage piece. You just need to do it with conscientiousness and knowing how to imbue something with value. Beauty is a balm for our daily lives, and it is beautiful to be sharing it.
ILARIA’S TIPS:
I love the film and the photography in Cafè Society: it has inspired me in many of my collections.
The mosaic water basin in the garden looks just like it was created by Gio Ponti himself and it seems that there might even be his initials concealed in the design.
Unveiling the Superba city, through 16th century palaces, hanging gardens, frescoes and historical boutiques.
Wilhelmina Skogh has been the first female manager of the Grand Hotel in Stockholm in 1901. Discover her story!
Dear reader, let me suggest you an experiment. Enter into a “conversation” with words, pictures and the power of music. This is Musword!
It’s called the Garden of Marvels, most probably because it never ceases to surprise its visitors.
They are called Cultivators and they are mazes to let us reflect on the power and the coexistence between Mankind and Nature.
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on January 10th, 2020, n° 02/2020
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