With a wooden bench under the arm. That was the postcard with which, twenty years ago, reciprocal history between Cristián Mohaded and the city of Milan began. Then he returned on different opportunities, and now he did the same in the framework of design week, already in the big leagues, in A collaboration for Louis Vuitton presented inside the serbelloni palazzo.
Graduated as an industrial designer at the National University of Córdoba, He is the first Argentine chosen by the legendary French fashion firm And the third Latin American, after the Brazilians Humberto and Fernando Campana, is also a new member of the luxury team that, among others, are Patricia Urquiola, Jaime Hayon and Patrick Jouin.
So far, Mohaded’s work, born in recreation, Catamarca, It was characterized by going beyond functionality and exhibiting both ancestral knowledge condensed in a crafts, as the nobility of the materials used in facilities, furniture and light compositions that it performs.
I was in the Louis Vuitton workshops and I saw how they do it, it is impressive, and that happens in the city of Paris
Among its memorable pieces are the columns made with tissue volumes from the Simol, a typical Argentine basketry technique, The same the reversal of the chair that Jean-Michel Frank made for the Llao Llao hotel in the 30s, and that Mohaded reversed in 2021with details of dry cactus cardon from Jujuy and upholstered in Creole loom, among other telluric references.
He emerged in Monte open, the installation he did during the pandemic in the Argentina’s pavilion at the London Design Biennial and the subsequent individual exhibition Hybrid territory in the National Museum of Decorative Art, also with the collaborations for local companies and the Spartan, and the international Roche Bobois and Loro Piana.
Just after that association, Louis Vuitton’s proposal emerged, with whom he worked for a year and a half to launch the collections Signature y Decorative objects. They include furniture, luminaries, textiles and dishes, and are the result of an exhaustive research carried out by the Mohaded study, when revisiting not only its territorial anchors of origin, but the history of the fashion brand, whose iconic pieces become wink in some products.
The adventure sofa stands out, which uses the usual reinforcements in the firm’s travel trunks, and the Noah lamp with the screen adorned with a leather buckle taken as Inspiration of the emblematic Steamer bag. Also the carpet that alludes to the reason of the Chacana, a symbol of the Andean culture to represent the union between the earth and the sky.
-What were the premises and how was the development of the pieces?
-What is everything in Italy or France. They sent us the colored catalog of the textiles and obviously there were suggestions, because You had to align with the collections of the other designers. We also proposed what we thought was better for the project. It was a dialogue, nothing was one hundred percent of one side or another. They wanted each other’s imprint to look and that’s what I liked the most. That blend could be generated from both parties, and I think it was the collection that worked best and had more impact.
– Louis Vuitton is based on the Savoir Faire and the artisans with whom you work also have their knowledge. They were interested that you would relate these two issues?
-Yes, I think the brands are looking at that. They are interpreting that luxury goes more on that side, with what is done by hand and the registration of the artisanal. I was in the workshops of Louis Vuitton and I saw how they do it, it is impressive, And that happens in the city of Paris.
I love living in my country. Buenos Aires is a city that sometimes saturates you, but also mobilizes
-The fashion is shown in an ephemeral way, not to mention on social networks, although, in turn, in the way of doing, time is valued again. Is that also in your products?
-Yes, they have been doing the prototype for a long time, that the chair is stable, that it does not break, the same with the lamps. In addition to quality control and a lot of other things that are tested before starting a product. All of that is part, it is not as the saying “blowing and making bottles” says.
-And along the way, from the project to the result, how is frustration handled?
-I have hard skin in that regard. I always tell the boys of my team that, from one hundred, I had ninety -nine “no.” That must be clear. It is like an exercise to test and do something that is different.
-On that, you came to say that, that exercise, you do it as if it were going to the gym to run …
-Yes, and the creative part is part of that exercise. One supplies what happens on a day -to -day basis; Go to a museum, see a tree, the facade of a house, all that is knowledge that I have. I am a kind of sponge that I am incorporating information. A mixture of things, maybe I see a railing that catches my attention in the subway in Paris and I took a picture because I liked the situation. Then, it can become a detail in something else.
One of Cristián Mohaded’s works. Photo: Maxi Failla. -Yes, but not direct, I do it as a reflection towards something else. For example, the trunks of the trunks of Louis Vuitton It is three parts and what we did is two, in another way. It goes around.
-What was the hit of the collection?
-The Atlas Mesa, in ónix and with travertine lines. It is a more sculptural piece, which has strength by the stone itself, textures and transparency. The Chacana carpet also, for the colors, the cut, and for being different from what they are accustomed to seeing. It was all very positive. If they were Argentines, the issue was more exalted. Pride was the word that invaded my social networks in public and private comments. The collection was very applauded at the press level, we left everywhere.
-You can live in Europe or build your study there, why are you interested in being here?
–I love to be here, Obviously there are a lot of other things. AND Buenos Aires is a city that sometimes saturates you, but also mobilizes.
I am a kind of sponge that incorporates information
-I think there is a lot to do. Design crosses the functional as a cultural tool. That is what I try to show in my work. Over there, the industry did not have the possibility or capacity, there are many things that happen, economic and in the country. The artisanal and material part is the strong, what has the most potential. I am interested in believing in a form of design that is related to that. For some this is not design, it is crafts.
-Is this discussion continues?
-Yes, but I don’t argue it, for me it is design. It is what I hold. The same if they ask me if it is design or art. I prefer not to deal, not package, because someone at some point described art or design in a form. Things are not so rigid.
-Will it be why the world is polarized?
-Ean one does what he wants. Someone can say that this object is a vase or a work. It remains in which he understands it and if not, perhaps, it is not for that person.
-Step are argued that in Argentina is intellectual capital but that there is no design industry. What can you say?
-You have to put in the place that corresponds to each one. Perhaps it is not the industry for furniture, but it is profitable to make glasses or trucks. To try to understand that each one has their role. Here, there is a lot of head. We are half complicated where we are located. On the one hand, far away, but on the other, we are in a paradisiacal place.
Cristián Mohaded poses close to his creations. Photo: Maxi Failla. -Argentina is incredible from north to south, in terms of geographical, the human, amplitude. Here, we have space. We are still comfortable.
-What projects are coming?
-There are one in the inkwell to Brazil, and for here furniture, some facilities. Also of interior design, little by little I get into that world, trying to do something different, thinking what we have inside the houses.
–Did that change in the pandemic?
-I’m more to the form of the elements that one uses. For example, in a project we are doing I don’t want to bring anything outside, I want everything to be in Argentina. It is a fairly particular house, not any house. We propose another concept of interior design.
-The design has a social function. Since you received until now, do you notice any change in the assimilation of the public?
–Today the design is on everyone’s lips. Each can interpret what they want, from the word design. I remember a faculty teacher who asked the students what they had designed when they presented their work. If someone told him, for example, that he had made a cup, he asked him which part of the cup had designed, he was in depth. A philosophical issue.
Design crosses the functional as a cultural tool. That is what I try to show in my work
-The handicraft was dismembered before, and in the last time it began to be included, as if he were looking again. In your case, you take care of the artisan teachers, but what is happening in that regard?
-Lorenzo Reyes is the voice of the symbol. I make an interpretation of that and turn it to the towers. In the London Design Biennial, the protagonist of the storytelling was him. That was the important thing. We put the focus there, in the life of that person who represents many artisans. There is a work dynamic and then comes the piece. What they are giving me has a lot of value. I try to make it replicate in the dialogue where I count on my work. Or not the sofa may like it, I don’t care about absolutely nothing.
-What medicine did you take?
–You have to do what you want and respect yourself more about what you think. I can’t repub up for the comment of someone to tell me “that’s not design.” I changed Ricardo Blanco’s sample, This is not a chair. I came from Córdoba to see her. When I made the collection to us, I proposed to reissue one of their chairs, as the Italians do when giving weight to the great designers. He could have been criticized, but no one can deny that he did a lot for the Argentine design.