Cordially Invited by Fabrica

During the Milan International Furniture Show

Fabrica presented CORDIALLY INVITED

Three-dimensional reflections on everyday life

Fuori Salone

16-21 April 2008

Ponzano, April 2008. This year, too, Fabrica kept its important appointment with the International Furniture Show in Milan. As part of the “off-show” events, it presented Cordially Invited, an invitation to see new ideas for the home, the fruit of the long-standing collaboration between Fabrica and well-known Italian and international brands.

Located in historical Palazzo Borromeo, Cordially Invited presented everyday objects and accessories designed with an ironic, unconventional approach by Fabrica’s international team of young designers.

To welcome the visitor, a garden crystallised in pottery, planted with hybrid vegetables created through the invention of an exceptional designer, Nature. And so a Romanesco cauliflower became a strange salad bowl, and a bunch of bananas turns into an unusual bonbonnière.

Looking as if a party were about to start, elegantly laid tables showcase the collections Fabrica had made for top-name international firms, including Bosa, Diamantini e Domeniconi and Secondome.

For the kitchen, placemats, tea towels, aprons and pot holders all have a surprise in store: in addition to tableware, their fabrics are also printed with tools normally used in other situations, such as the car repairer’s monkey wrench or the surgeon’s scalpel.

The Tea Time Collection is a mini collection of pottery inspired by the teatime ritual, a traditional moment of relaxation. Each article is composed of a series of time-honoured classic pieces – teapot, tray, cups – rearranged and reinterpreted in different sizes. Elegant, timeless silhouettes whose form and functions were first disconnected then recombined in a sophisticated composition of unusual black pottery.

Fabrica’s new ideas include a range of decorative items. Such as a mini collection of domestic clocks which take a light-hearted, original approach to marking the passage of time, as, for example, the wall clock with a cuckoo comfortably perched on its edge. And a range of stylish cushions decorated with beautiful embroidery to open up new horizons of nature and urban scapes on our own sofa.

A lounge space - with colourful pouffes, lamps and different kinds of low furniture fused together by a “floral skin” - offers visitors a chance to relax during the busy days of the Furniture Fair. In the background, music from the same-name compilation, Cordially Invited, the tenth CD of the Fabrica Musica CD Series. Published by Nuova Stradivarius, the series encompasses diverse experimental music projects. The Cordially Invited compilation provides the ideal accompaniment for a dinner with friends; an invitation to savour life as if it were a cake made by a skilful musician-chef who mixes different ingredients, sounds and musical inspirations. Melodies based on a day-to-day domestic experience, sounds produced by kitchen utensils that blend together with an original, elegant approach.

The Cordially Invited collections were part of Fabrica Features, a series of objects created by Fabrica for different kinds of shops and retail facilities, from purely commercial to cultural spaces, from specialist retailers to generalist multi-goods shops.

Fabrica Features is also the name of a number of multiethnic and multimedia meeting places Fabrica has opened in Bologna, Lisbon and Hong Kong, with temporary shops in Paris, London, Porto and Rotterdam. Hubs in an ideal network of dialogue and information exchanges through which Fabrica spreads its culture across the world.