A new boutique within central London department store Harrods is the first space to host an exclusive selection of Prada homeware pieces. The boutique – boasting an inlaid walnut version of the Italian brand’s signature chequered floor, complemented by pale green walls in tactile fabric – showcases a range of homeware designs. Among them is graphic porcelain inspired by interior design accents in the brand’s first store, which opened in 1913 within Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II; wave-like borosilicate glassware; and a new edition of hammered silver cutlery, first designed by Josef Hoffmann in 1905.
In September 2020, Harrods played host to Prada’s ‘Hideaway’ – a labyrinthine pop-up installation with walls and oblique shelves in pale poplar, which was an aesthetic evolution of the brand’s 2015 global window display concept, ‘Corners’. Both were the work of Italian designer Martino Gamper, whose preoccupation with materiality – often combining different woods and colours – has long chimed with Prada. ‘[Prada CEO] Patrizio Bertelli is also really interested in materiality,’ Gamper told us last year.
Make yourself at home with Prada and Martino Gamper
Gamper has also designed a selection of homeware pieces, which echo both his and Prada’s aesthetic DNA, ranging from chopping boards to vases, trays to coasters. He describes them as ‘simple forms with great details’. A series of hollow geometric vases is handmade from a variety of different hardwoods, including cherry, oak and walnut, their corners inlaid with splices of colourful laminate. Chopping boards in solid untreated Austrian larch – which does not affect the flavour of the food it touches – also feature bright laminate accents, in orange, blue, yellow and green. The designs reflect Gamper’s interest in the corner as a concept. ‘Slicing the corner off of something is an idea that’s interested me for a long time,’ he says. ‘Whenever I see something square I want to cut something away.’
Gamper’s Prada homeware creations also include a range of angular coasters, designed to be used as single pieces or combined into larger assemblages to hold a number of glasses at once. In a nod to Prada’s history as a leather goods house, they are constructed in its signature Saffiano leather. §