Blog

With the start of the new year, as usual, we get things in order: we close folders and files of completed projects, take stock of those in progress and new business for the future.

Over the course of this 2023 shooting we have been working, designing, making and repeating. We have been looking around, curious to catch taste trends in contemporary design.

Speed is part of the game, indeed – in many cases – it makes the difference between doing and not doing a certain job.

With the holiday season approaching, we return to the question of why we love to give and receive gifts. Giving items all the time, regardless of their quality and durability? 

Caught up in planning, in work to be started and completed on time, we find ourselves, despite ourselves, feeling the weight of the environmental emergencies we are all experiencing.

Over so many years of activity, both as a company and as the Renzetti family, we have carried on and handed down together a technique and shared a passion. The four generations that have worked on the same guilloché machines are joined at the hip by the experience of those gestures, precise and always the same, even though the world around those concentric circles has changed a great deal since 1909.

Some time ago, while lingering over the geometries of some patterns, we became fond of finding affinities with other cultures and techniques far from us in time and space.

It’s great to see how the revival of interest in well-made, durable things is leading consumers to investigate the various fields of manufacturing and craftsmanship.

You may have noticed that for a few years now, the minimalist and all-white vein in interior design has been dying out, while people are returning to appreciate and desire furnishing accessories with a retro flavor, warmer colors and “softer” surfaces.

Easy to imagine but difficult to achieve, the Millerighe – Thousand stripes- is an essential pattern, which gives surfaces a precious feel without detracting from them, on the contrary enhancing the purity of the object’s design.

At the risk of sounding rhetorical, we want to say that we are proud to work and have worked with enlightened designers, craftsmen and entrepreneurs.

As the first “find” in the Renzetti 1909 Archives, we have chosen to show you a lipstick holder from the early 1900s. Definitely a “smart object”: similar to fountain pens – which we particularly love – it can be used indefinitely by simply replacing the lipstick crayon.

If there were a decorative motif to be elected as the most widespread in space and time, it would certainly be CHEVRON. 

We decided to show you through our Instagram page some special objects from the Renzetti 1909 Milano archive. Our attention was captured by objects that were once in common use – now “forgotten” – that offer many insights into aspects of our everyday life. We stopped to look at their details, not only in aesthetic terms, but also in terms of functionality, innovation and sustainability.

This unpredictable and incredible year and a half has allowed many people time to look inside their closets and old boxes. What we found got us thinking about our relationship with objects and how it has radically changed over the 100+ year history of our business.

We have created a document that can be consulted on-line to communicate the fundamental characteristics and potential of our work at the service of Italian and international design.

After almost a year spent with only the company of our antique machinery, we are very eager to let anyone interested in design know more about guilloché and to share new projects in progress.

Many of you will remember that soft glow of items that belonged to a parent or grandparent such as a lighter, cigarette case, pen or picture frame. But how were they made and why?