Everything begins with damage
Every object that arrives in my studio comes with some loved marks:
Worn corners.
Cracked edge oil.
Damaged canvas body.
Patina on the metals.
Missing beads.
For most people, these are signs that an object is reaching the end of its life. But for me, they are the
Beginning.
Tradition restoration asks how an object can return to what it once was. It is a beautiful discipline, and one that preserves history with remarkable skill. But I tended to ask a different question:
What alternative future could this object have?
One material I keep returning to is Gucci’s iconic GG canvas. It has become one of the brans’s signature design again in this year’s collection. Ironically, most vintage Gucci suffer from the same problem: over time, the woven threads begin to break into holes. Eventually the canvas loses its initial aesthetics.
Broken woven threads from loved Gucci bag
Standing in front of one of my first damaged Gucci Jackie bags, I sensed I wasn’t looking for a traditional invisible repair; I was imagining something non-ordinary.
Eventually I decided to use traditional Chinese patchwork techniques, not only because it is part of my own cultural heritage. The decision came from looking at the object itself. During Alessandro Michele’s years at Gucci, the house embraced a rich visual language filled with heavy embroidery, florals, tiger, dragon and other East Asian motifs. For me, the Chinese patchwork seemed a continuation of a conversation that had already begun.
My very first restored Gucci featuring traditional Chinese patchwork (Sold to a German collector)
Rare Gucci Shanghai dragon boston bag from my personal collection
Developing a series of Gucci bamboo using vintage embroidery flowers
That experiment changed the way I look at restoration. I started to see damage as the reason for creative solutions.
Every material behaves differently. Every object carries a different story. Every brand speaks its own design language.
Every intervention is the result of a design decision, chosen by the objects’s material, her history, and the visual language it already carries.
Rather than creating the illusion that an object never damage, I’m happily exploring where else that damage might lead.