Based in Paris, Astier de Villatte was founded in 1996 by Benoît Astier de Villatte and Ivan Pericoli, and ever since, it has gained a growing following across the planet with its ceramics which both employ and modernise 18th-century French manufacturing traditions, and to a lesser extent, artisanal fragrances, and a growing number of cult publications. After inaugurating shops in Paris and Seoul, the company has once again expanded its retail operations, and this time, with a new boutique in Milan. Nestled in the city’s leafy Brera district, the store occupies a space on the ground floor of a building with a historic 17th-century façade with arched windows. The interior has been entirely renewed, featuring walls lined with bespoke shelving units laden with merchandise, a stone floor with black cabochon diamonds and also herringbone parquet, and an adjacent, all-white exhibition space. The Astier de Villatte store is divided into a section showcasing its perfumes, incense, candles, and ceramics. Additionally, shoppers will find skincare products, creams and soaps, and quite appropriately, a washbasin testing can be found here.
The other shop section presents ceramic tableware, with a new service by French visual artist and cardboard sculptor Eva Jospin designed especially for Astier de Villatte, the latest lamps, stationery, furniture, as well as cushions by Diane De Clercq in graphic patterns and beautiful colours, and textiles imbued with old-fashioned luxury by John Derian and Anke Drechsel. The inaugural show of the exhibition space is by Jospin who has created three impressive works of art, or rather, mini architectural follies, sculpted in cardboard and then moulded in white ceramic. An eight-piece service, decorated with interlacing lianas and branches, also in white ceramic, is presented alongside the showcase in the Astier de Villatte boutique. Interestingly, Jospin shares a long friendship with the brand’s founders and she chose also to display a portrait of her at the age of ten by the painter Pierre Carron, the father of Benoît Astier de Villatte. It was through this portrait that she eventually met Benoît, who gave her drawing lessons, and then Ivan, with whom she spent two years at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. © superfuture
Astier de Villatte
Via dell’Orso 1 (Brera)
20121 Milan
Telephone +39 02 72105779
Mon-Sat 10.30am-7pm
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Just to be clear – superfuture® is a design blog and not a political commentator. No surprise there. The scope of our content has always been global and borderless, however that can often mean covering projects in countries where we will not agree with the politics or actions of those countries. In a world that’s as screwed up as ever right now, the focus of our support is to those designers, architects and other creatives who aim to make the world a more liveable one – as opposed to people that try their hardest to destroy it. So if a project hits our desk and we like it based on its design credentials, we may choose to publish regardless of its location or creators nationality. superfuture® has always been inclusive and hopes for all current wars, aggression, violence, hate and extremism to end.
