Julia Duran about the new trend

If copper was once the poor cousin of gold—expensive furniture was coated with gold, and pots were made from copper—now everything has changed. Precious metal has been leveled down to cheap jewelry, real gilding is rarely used, except in classic furniture, and everything that glitters with a yellow sheen is just “gold-like” varnish. But copper is now a real value. From the corner of classic replicas, where it continued to be used (bathtubs, pipes and other fittings), copper entered the expanse of great design. Its cost allows you not to imitate the color, but to use it itself with all the ensuing pleasant consequences: the solid weight of a real thing, handmade, a reference to craft traditions, natural material. At the same time, it shines no worse, and even better, than fake gold, so the copper design may well be classified as elegant, and not for every day. Although in everyday life such things will not look excessive. Copper seems to say: I am who I am, I don’t pretend to be more and I don’t want to deceive anyone. That is why designers are increasingly using copper, rather than its alloys, brass and bronze, which can be confused with gold in color. The warm pinkish tint of pure copper cannot be confused with anything.

Copper followed the path of marble, which we talked about in the summer. Being quite valuable materials, both are now not only popular, but have completely become popular among the people. They are used both by relatively expensive brands and by students of design schools. These are not indicators of luxury, but simply the materials that designers like to work with. English designer Tom Dixon played a significant role in the demand for copper. He practically abandoned other materials and has been working with different types of copper for the past five years, making mainly lamps and various accessories from them. He uses a wide variety of techniques, from traditional embossing to laser cutting.

Following Dixon, other designers paid attention to the advantages of copper. Most of them, inventing something of their own, remain in the same field of lamps and dishes. There is not much real furniture; the largest item is still the bathtub. Sometimes designers manage to kill two birds with one stone. For example, Habibi brand e15 is a table, that is, a full-fledged piece of furniture, although it consists of a tray (think of it as dishes) and thin wire legs. Wood and copper tables and stools from Ginger & Jagger balance between furniture and art. Against the background of these little things, the KME collection stands out. This is an industrial giant that produces copper for construction: pipes, panels for facades, roofs, etc. They know how to do everything with copper. It is not surprising that when KME invited several designers to create a furniture collection this year, it turned out to be interesting. Bureau Nendo dared to paint some of its tables white, so that the copper appears to be showing through the paint. The girls from Front came up with a pretty lamp that looks like soft fabric. Ferruccio Laviani took on an entire rack, and Francesco Rota played with different copper alloys, resulting in an excellent puzzle set of dishes.

Most often the material is chosen simply for its beauty, but sometimes there is a more complex explanation for this choice. Designers from the Zwei21 bureau admit that their Interioricity lamp is a hymn to usually invisible wires, which are made of copper. Tamasine Osher, as is clear, sends greetings to antique copper pipes with his Pipe lamp. Architect David Adjaye saw the Grid copper vase in the Gaia & Gino collection and decided to use the same material, but in a completely different way. The result is the Star collection, architectural and with Swarovski crystals. Alessi's copper cake pan is a nod to the copper cookware of yesteryear. Designer Mario Trimarchi believes that in combination with the new design, this will give a good decorative effect and, like previously polished saucepans, this form will need to be stored on an open shelf or hung on the wall, and not in a cabinet. In fact, this can be applied to everything on this page. At least in December there is no need to hide them, but rather to display them and give them as a gift.

Mednoye – Weekend – Kommersant