AN APPLE A DAY: Luca Nichetto is dipping his toes into fashion accessories.
The furniture designer, known for his serial approach to collaborations, has linked with New York-based accessories brand Angela Roi to design a tote bag crafted from apple skin leather.
This marks the first time the handbag label, founded by the South Korea-born Roi in 2012, has ventured into a collaboration.
“We embrace sustainability values leveraging high-equality and eco-friendly materials. Plant-based [leather] alternatives…are the new frontier of green fashion tapping into our clients’ demand for items benefiting the planet,” said Roi, who has designed cacti faux leather handbags in the past.
Named Malala, the bag nods to Nichetto’s functional approach to design tinged with pop references. It features four structured inward-looking pockets shaped as fast food French fry boxes.
Nichetto’s desire to design a bag stemmed from his quest to apply functionality to a new product category, the bag’s eco-credentials an added value that designers cannot overlook, he said.
“Shape is dictated by function…hence the pockets, which help rationalize and organize all the objects in a woman’s bag. I didn’t want to approach leather goods from an aesthetic standpoint, but rather have functionality determine the stylistic blueprint of the object,” the designer said.
Available in three colorways — beige, black and dark red — the bag retails at 1,050 euros, debuting on Tuesday on Angela Roi’s e-commerce site.
Nichetto has a track record as a serial collaborator, having linked with Wien-based furniture company Wittmann; Hermès; homeware and porcelain brand Ginori 1735; Swedish furniture design company Offecct, as well as U.S.-based piano manufacturing company Steinway & Sons, among others.
A new piano under the latter partnership is bowing this week, called Gran Nichetto and inspired by the shell of Venetian gondolas. It is produced as a limited edition.
Nichetto Studio was established in 2006 in Stockholm, Sweden. Earlier this year, Nichetto left his role as art director of French furniture and fashion company La Manufacture, which he helped establish as a full-fledged design business since taking over its creative lead in 2018.
Source: WWD