Design Visionary

George Banns explores the concept of ‘meta-luxury’ with pioneers Visionnaire, renowned for their one-of-a-kind tailored design process

Luxury companies now face important challenges on their path towards lower environmental impact, but also great responsibility to create breath-taking designs. In the current climate, its' important to go beyond the idea of "traditional" luxury, linked only to the concept of exclusivity, and address the values that an object or project transmits and the ability of brands to inspire the next generations. This broad concept, known as Meta-Luxury, or "beyond" luxury, invites us to discover everything that exists beyond the artefact itself, leading us to think upon the origins of the raw materials and therefore the traceability, production processes and the wider ecosystem that allows the creation of an object that bears value.

Benefit company since 2021, Visionnaire, as a Meta-Luxury brand, continues its path towards a lower impact by focusing on the fundamental values of responsibility towards the Italian territory, ethical design and processes whilst upholding the highest quality of Made in Italy. It's a journey that started with the Greenery collection presented for the first time at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in 2017 in Milan. During that fair, the Bastian sofa was proposed in an alternative, more sustainable version. Visionnaire have opted for natural counterparts, using cherry stones for the padding of the cushions, or rubbers of vegetable origin. This was the result of a careful process of research and experimentation, which led them to discover new solutions and to reuse ancient techniques.

Since 2004, Visionnaire formulated a distinctive style, based on lively experimentation with materials, volumes of unexpected poise and inimitable motifs that reveal the quintessential Italian influence. The brand bases its activity on the value of knowledge and continuing research of contemporary beauty, confirming its exceptional ability to create design projects and products of outstanding sartorial workmanship, fostering and restoring value to the skills of local artisans located across Italy. The meta-luxury values are reflected in the responsible use of materials and through technological research conducted by the company. It’s through the mixing and matching of materials, applying the skills of artisans to test, perfecting and defining new compositional and material solutions, that the brand is able to create timeless extraordinary objects: defining the identity of every single product by making it unique and inimitable, as well as ready for reproduction.

The brand now works across more than 55 countries, with over 32 exclusive monobrand stores, a network of multibrand showrooms and six embassies, including the London Embassy. Inside the Chelsea Harbour Design Centre, the space is also entirely dedicated to bespoke design. Organised as a true dwelling: the rooms, with rounded corners, display the furnishings along a specific architectural pathway. The walls alternate ribbed wood and fabric wallcoverings with early 20th-century floral decorations and pastel shades of sage green, to expand the perception of the space, making it dynamic and organic.

Adhering to the new concept of ‘meta-luxury’, Visionnaire centre their design around material that testifies to the company's change, including wood, because it's the basis of every product, be it visible or hidden. Obtaining certification for wood (FSCTM and PEFCTM) is therefore an important milestone.

Well-being and sustainability also translate into the choice of innovative high-performance fabrics and leathers, giving life to the Re-Generation sample book, a project entirely dedicated to those materials that meet low-impact criteria. In this special selection, each single fabric will be accompanied by a technical sheet containing details on composition, spinning, weaving, cultivation systems and traceability that allows us to know the life cycle of the product.

Leather is also a key meta-luxury material. In the Beauty collection, in addition to the fine leathers that they normally use, Visionnaire have proposed a regenerated version: the Eco-Skin. Clients are used to luxury materials, worked with sartorial expertise, but excellence is not only in the quality of an articulated reworking. On the contrary, it can be expressed even more strongly in a sustainable product, which reflects an extraordinary capacity for innovation and an equally significant ethical depth. What the brand aims to do, is to convey a new luxury paradigm, one that recognises and rewards the value of conscience and responsibility.

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