Sew long: Craft-finished designs are built to last

Milan – ‘We try to make products destined to be handed down from generation to generation,’ says Massimiliano Iorio, co-founder of Paris-based manufacturer Moustache.

‘We ask designers to work with good materials, and try to make our prices as right as possible,’ he continues. ‘We don’t want to make gallery pieces for thousands of dollars.’

Moustache is not in the business of hurrying production, however. Although some of the pieces look very simple, there is a complex, localised and involved production process.

Each piece in designer Inga Sempé’s Vapeur collection requires the work of 16 manufacturers and craftspeople, for example. Sheets of Tyvek, a type of high-density polyethylene fibre made by DuPont, are sent to Germany to be heat-pressed into pleats. In the next stage, each piece of now-pleated Tyvek is sewn into a shape reminiscent of clouds and chef’s hats by local seamstresses.

A similar mix of craft and industrial processes is used to make many of Moustache’s other products. Design company Big-Game’s Bold chair and coat rack are made of an industrially produced steel structure covered in foam and a hand-woven, sock-like cover.

The attention Moustache gives to each part of the production process, and its products’ lower price points, suggest that even the concept of family heirlooms is being democratised.