This year, ETRO Home Interiors debuted a new suite of novelties—the Mythos, Aleppo, and Ziggy. The Mythos dining table is striking, characterized by two figures of Pegasus in red lacquered resin, holding up a glass top framed in brass. The Aleppo small table features horn inlay decoration, a detail also found in the vertical spine of the Aleppo bookcase. But the showstopper in our opinion is the Ziggy console, made in smoked eucalyptus frisé wood in a polished brass frame.
In Milan this spring, Whitewall was there to chat with Jacopo Etro—the founder of ETRO‘s son and Head of Textiles—about the new collection and how furniture can take on a sustainable ethos.
Courtesy of ETRO.
WHITEWALL: Can you tell us a bit about this year’s collection?
JACOPO ETRO: This is the second collection we’ve done in furniture. So, what we wanted to do was continue on the same path we took last year—the nomadic theme. We decided to go on with the nomadic theme but looking at another country. So, from India, we went to Africa. We looked at African cultures and African materials and colors, and we worked on that to make it a bit more European. And then we used wood, but used it in a different way.
Courtesy of ETRO.
We also went on with our idea of traveling. We looked, into French books—some beautiful hard cover books that I’ve collected since I was 25 from the 19th century. From there, we developed an idea of print, which engulfs all the ideas of traveling—a state of mind of traveling; of going somewhere and coming back and having all your ideas and things you have collected during your trip.
Then, the last part of the collection is a symbol that we’ve been polishing from the past, but we’ve rediscovered it. The Pegasus—the winged horse, part of mythology. We used the bolt that Zeus used to use. Then, we used arrows for some parts of the collection. We used the Pegasus in a large size to make the base of a dining room table, and we lacquered it in bright red—something a little bit more funky.
Courtesy of ETRO.
If you have something from last year’s collection, you can mix it up with the collection of this year.
WW: Which is more sustainable.
Courtesy of ETRO.
JE: Yeah, it’s more sustainable. I think that home furnishing should last much, much longer. I believe that this is very important. Also, it’s economic. You cannot change your sofas every year. You keep it for a long time. Sometimes you don’t even change them, if you’re very fond of them.
WW: You’ve mentioned that the intention for ETRO Homes is to present an “all around lifestyle concept that goes beyond the apparel and fabric collections.” How does this new presentation emphasize that?
JE: A very strong DNA so it’s not too difficult to work when you are designing the home. You already have the patterns—the paisleys, the symbols, the colors. It will be very difficult for anybody to see an ETRO collection all beige, all gray, or all white. We use a lot of colors. Rich colors for winter, and summer colors are very bright. It gives you an idea of the world—a cultural and nomadic world
I like the idea of furniture that you don’t have to place in something that is either too contemporary or too ancient looking—something that works a little bit everywhere, somehow.
