Avril8790 di Sanarelli Maria Elena

Specialized in Design.

Avril8790 di Sanarelli Maria Elena

About Avril8790 di Sanarelli Maria Elena

  • Winner of the A' Design Award.
  • Specialized in Design.
  • Original Design.
  • Creative, Diligent and Innovative.
  • All Designs

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Interview with Avril8790 di Sanarelli Maria Elena

Could you please tell us more about your art and design background? What made you become an artist/designer? Have you always wanted to be a designer?
ME: I attend for 11 years a painting course (from 9 to 20). After that, I graduate with a bachelor in History of Art and I attended other Courses to deep the matter of History of photography / ’60-’90 Artistic movements. I thought to become a designer only when I was a little girl and no more after that, since Francesco encouraged me to become a designer and to create a new Brand to join our family background. F: I always lived in a context full of beautiful things and jewels, so I developed a deep aesthetic understanding since when I was a boy. I never loved to study so I proceed to experiment the real design in a more practical way, without theoretical basis, directly designing and projecting new jewels.
Can you tell us more about your company / design studio?
We decided to create the new Brand Avril8790 just for fun at the beginning… We want to use the productive/cultural heritage of Tuscany to create unique luxury accessories of quality. We melt our two family background: the manufacturing of the precious metals (Francesco) and the production of high knitwear (Maria Elena), technically different, but both symbols of Italian quality. The Avril8790 products join the strength of the metal with the softness of knit. After that, we decided to put all our energy, passion and creativity in this project, combining also our interest for contemporary Art, which is the main inspiration for all the capsules and collections. The concept from which we started, bases its foundation on the desire to create a product 100% Made in Italy, paying particular attention to the research in art, technology and manufacturing. The products are made only with high quality material, innovative techniques (as Embossed to realize a 3D knit and CNC cuts for metal) and exploring continuously new designs. Every pieces is handmade finished. Jewels and bags that embody the fusion between tradition and innovation, accessories with clean volumes and geometrical edges both in the metal and in the knit. In summary, in Avril8790 products tradition meet innovation and knit meet metal to create 3D 100% made in Italy design jewels and bags, similar to pieces of contemporary Art.
What is "design" for you?
F: Design for me is the only way in which I can freely express my inner part and my deep ethic. ME: Design is making artistic an everyday life object without lose his real function.
What kinds of works do you like designing most?
F: I like thinking about every kind of object, but particularly for our Brand Avril8790, I prefer designing clutches and necklaces. ME: I prefer designing bags and clutches.
What is your most favorite design, could you please tell more about it?
F: I prefer the clutch TwoFaces Ziggy, because we studied a lot before to reach the best and approved design and, after that, we need to solve different technical challenges in order to realize it as we imagined. ME: I prefer the Necklace Ziggy, because has a great movement and it is highly wearable even if is sharp, so it is one of the most representative design of our brand Avril8790.
What was the first thing you designed for a company?
F: a parure for my family company ME: a composite painting for the shop of my family company
When do you feel the most creative?
F: in the early morning when I turn over in the bed ME: sometimes when I’m designing and other times during the evening, but the truth is that the start of a new idea usually comes from Francesco.
Which aspects of a design do you focus more during designing?
The more important aspects is to give the correct perspective to the design, in order to suddenly modify it correctly to reach our idea of Harmony.
What kind of emotions do you feel when you design?
ME: I’m very glad because I used to design since when I was a little girl. Nowadays, transform this passion in a real work is extremely exciting. F: Eh… it is a real hard question… Euphoria, curiosity to see the complete design and the satisfaction to create something new.
What kind of emotions do you feel when your designs are realized?
F: I’m satisfied for what we created but, at the same time, I’m full of doubts to understand if and how we can improve again the design. ME: I’m satisfied for the results and I have to stop Francesco that want to change everything again.
What makes a design successful?
F: the visual impact ME: I don’t know… I’d like to have the answer to this question
When judging a design as good or bad, which aspects do you consider first?
The visual impact, the innovation, if it is aesthetically beautiful, the cure of details and the manufacturing.
From your point of view, what are the responsibilities of a designer for society and environment?
It is important for us that our product contains the manufacturing know-how of the territory in order to don’t loose the tradition of workers. But at the same way we want to use design to explore innovation and to enhance these previous know-hows. As a general way, we think that designer have to respect the environment both as a visual aspect than as a green impact for the future generations.
How do you think the "design field" is evolving? What is the future of design?
Material research and manufacturing which respect the environment.
Where does the design inspiration for your works come from? How do you feed your creativity? What are your sources of inspirations?
Our inspiration comes from our family backgrounds and form our passion for contemporary artists. We feed our creativity with everything is around our world and we use to take a great inspiration from other artist’s works.
How would you describe your design style? What made you explore more this style and what are the main characteristics of your style? What's your approach to design?
Geometrical, material, volumetric, sharp. We starting exploring more this style because we like it and it well express our interior style and thoughts. Our approach is instinctual, we think something beautiful and we design it. After that, we use a more theoretical approach to improve it.
Where do you live? Do you feel the cultural heritage of your country affects your designs? What are the pros and cons during designing as a result of living in your country?
We live in Arezzo, Tuscany. We deeply use our cultural heritage to realize our design because the most important manufacturing companies for knit, metal and leather are located between Arezzo and Florence. In any case, our design is completely different from the tradition of our territory because is sharp and geometric. So we use the manufacturing know-how of our territory to realize our ideas but we don’t have any influence from it for the aesthetic part of our design.
Can you talk a little about your design process?
Francesco has the starting idea but he can’t drawing it. Maria Elena is the only person who understand what Francesco is thinking and put it in a design comprehensible from other. After that, they both improve it to reach the best solution.
From your perspective, what would you say are some positives and negatives of being a designer?
Positive is that you do what you want and that you are free to express yourself. Negative is that we are not sure about how much we can earn next month or next year.
What is your "golden rule" in design?
F: To create what you have in your mind, without influences from external. ME: the same as Francesco, but remembering always to maintain the initial function of the designed object.
How long does it take to design an object from beginning to end?
It depends, sometimes it took just 1 hour but other times it needs few weeks.
What are your future plans? What is next for you?
Create a new collection and try to achieve a good Brand awareness… we hope, we never know…
How can people contact you?
contact@avril8790.it Press office: Studio Re Public Relations via Bramante 29 - 20154 Milano (Mi) tel +39 02 349 349 29 fax +39 02 349 349 37 mail staff@studiore.net

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