Italian designers Formafantasma have completed a series of objects using various types of discarded leather, including the skin of pigs, fish and cork trees.

Pieces in the collection include fish-skin hot water bottles, boar-fur brushes and water containers made of cow bladders. Above: Salmon stool: Fendi discarded leather, vegetal tanned salmon skin, wood, sea sponge.

The skins have been combined with unprocessed natural materials such as marble, wood, bones, shells, bladder and sponge to recall a pre-industrial era when artificial materials were not available. Above: Water containers: Cow bladders, glass, brass, cork

The collection, called Craftica, was commissioned by fashion house Fendi and will be presented at the Design Miami/Basel fair in Switzerland from 12-17 June. Above: Scallop spoons: Vegetal tanned trout and salmon skin, scallop shells, metal, discarded Fendi leather

Drawings showing the development of the project are presented on parchment, which is derived from goat skin. Above: Perch stool: Vegetal tanned perch skin, lime wood, brass label

See all our stories about Formafantasma here, including a range of objects made of natural plastics and tableware made of food. Above: Wolffish-pig stool: Vegetal tanned pig leather, vegetal tanned wolffish skin, wood, brass label

Here's more info from Formafantasma:

STUDIO FORMAFANTASMA / FENDI

About the commission

For the first time, FENDI is bringing its Design Performance program to Design Miami/ Basel, expanding on the program’s successful ventures in Miami and Milan. Since 2009, the FENDI Design Performances have offered audiences a rare view into designers’ workshops through the use of FENDI discarded materials and live demonstrations of the processes by which exceptional craft-based design work is made.

FENDI’s ongoing program emphasizes approaches to production that blend the traditional and the experimental while establishing a new, interactive format for design exhibitions that celebrates the creative process and the key role it plays in shaping the value of finished products. Above: Room divider: Discarded Fendi leather, oxidized brass, marble weights, leather-coverd hooks

In line with their previous presentations ‘Craft-Punk’ and ‘Craft Alchemy’, for this year’s project, FENDI has invited Italian design studio Formafantasma to develop ‘CRAFTICA’, a new body of work exploring leathercraft in conversation with other hand-worked, natural materials.

Designers Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin of Formafantasma were selected for this project because the young studio has already displayed an exceptional gift for inventive material investigations, as well as a highly refined and seductive aesthetic sensibility.

About CRAFTICA

Craftica is a visual and tactile investigation into leather. The design is driven by the symbolic connotations of leather, a material that, more than any other, represents the complex relationship between humans and nature. Above: Protective masks: Discarded Fendi leather, scallop-shells

Leather as a material has the ability to evoke almost ancestral memories of when nature was hunted to produce food, tools and protection for the body.

Searching underneath and above the sea, from the vegetal to the animal world, the installation offers a holistic view on leather as a material.

For the project Formafantasma utilized discarded leather,
 left over from the FENDI manufacturing processes at the foundation of the collection and drawing on the talent of FENDI’s in-house craftsmen for certain phases of production. Above: Perch fish hot water bag: Vegetal tanned perch skin, glass, brass

In addition to this, the designers selected a range of leathers obtained form fish skins discarded by the food industry, vegetal processed leather using natural substances from tree bark, cork leather extracted from cork trees leaving them unharmed and a series of animal bladders investigated for their abilities to hold liquids. Above: Bells-lights: Discarded Fendi leather, glass, leather-covered hooks, leather-covered electric wire

Despite the pieces appearing exotic in texture and material combinations, the majority of the leather and material used belongs to the daily. Above: Wolffish hot water bag: Vegetal tanned wolffish skin, glass, brass.

The skins are tanned to maintain their original colors and textures and in most cases obtained from common, ‘unsophisticated’ animals like salmons, trout and pigs. Above: Leather table: Discarded Fendi leather, brass structure, marble weights

The leathers have been paired with marble, oxidized metal, glass, wood and other unprocessed natural materials such as bones, shells and a sponge cultivated in a sea-farm as a substitute for industrial foam.

The installation displays a large variety of objects ranging from tools to furniture: a collection of glass lights hung via belts and hooks; a table and room divider produced from vegetal tanned rawhide stretched over brass structures with marble weights; a series of four stools characterized by organic forms and fin-like legs upholstered in fish leather (salmon, perch, trout, wolffish); spoons and protective masks made with scallop-shells; and, jar-like containers in glass and cow bladders.

As homage to leather, 28 handmade drawings are displayed on parchment (a strong paper obtained by a complex processing of hairless goat skin) portraying the many uses of leather throughout history.

During the fair in Basel, the designers in collaboration with in-house FENDI craftsmen, will produce and add new pieces to the installation. Above: Drawings on parchment (hairless goat skin). Drawings in collaboration with Francesco Zorzi

Credits:

Drawings developed in collaboration with designer and illustrator, Francesco Zorzi. Photos by Luisa Zanzani.

Above: Jar: Mouth blown glass on a cow bone, cow leather

Above: Brush: Vegetal tanned boar fur, boar bristles. Knife: Vegetal tanned cow leather, cow bone