A few weeks ago it was announced that Italian architect, designer and member of the Memphis Milano group Michele De Lucchi will be the new editor at Domus magazine.
De Lucchi will direct it for one year only: after him the publication will see a new editor a year for the next decade until 2028.
In this way the magazine that started in 1928 will celebrate its 90th anniversary in a remarkable style. This sounds like a rather complex project, after all we live in a digital world, so who knows if the publication will still come out on paper in a few years' time. Besides, changing an editor a year may prove annoying with readers, though it will surely be successful with the fans of that particular architect directing the magazine. Hopefully Domus will reach this ambitious goal, yet this post is not about the magazine, but about something De Lucchi recently said.
The first issue edited by the architect and designer will be out on 8th January 2018, but De Lucchi recently wrote a manifesto for his editorial vision that came out with the December issue of Domus. Printed on a poster, the piece is entitled "Objects and Enigmas" and De Lucchi opens it with the statement "My Version of Domus magazine will be dedicated to objects and their meanings." De Lucchi gives objects special powers: "Objects activate relations. They have an interior. They can be seen from up close or from far away. They can be silent or noisy, bare or dressed, conservative or rebellious. They can console or offend, seduce or abandon, remind us or make us forget. They can create logics of chaos, be unique or all the same (...) Objects are enigmas that life places before our eyes. Thinking about objects and their meanings is a challenge by which we can see the world in a new perspective."
What De Lucchi says about objects is definitely inspiring and we could transfer such ideas and meanings also onto other disciplines such as fashion and wonder in which ways garments activate relations, create chaos or logic or represent enigmas for us.
Throughout his career De Lucchi has designed and created objects that conformed to what Gio Ponti stated: "I believe that every piece of furniture, although it must always be functional, it must engage the imagination of the person designing it and the person seeing it."
If we apply this statement to De Lucchi's work, we easily see that the objects and prototypes he designed were created to stimulate our imagination, that's why they often inspired fashion accessories or were behind the palette of entire collections.
Yet De Lucchi will not just focus on objects: each issue of Domus under his direction will have a specific theme or keyword - such as rebellion, silence, emotion and chaos. Besides, the architect and designer will try and spark dialogues between different disciplines including anthropology, philosophy and economy.
Who knows, maybe there will be some space also for fashion in De Lucchi's Domus, while hopefully his design process and curiosity for the enigmas posed to us by objects may turn into a wider inspiration in art, architecture, interior design and, obviously, fashion.
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