Tuesday, May 1, 2018 –
11:01am
Max Mara: a glimpse inside the iconic
brand’s manufacture
First unveiled at this year’s Salone del Mobile design fair in
Milan at Galleria Giò Marcon, the LavaPrisms Project is a
collaboration between German painter Kerstin Brätsch and
United Brothers, an art collective spearheaded by siblings Ei
and Tomoo Arakawa.
Ei Arakawa has previously made a name for himself as a
performance artist; a 2012 residency at Tate Modern’s The Tanks saw
him draw inspiration from the radical works of the Gutai group,
Japan’s first post-war art collective. Somewhat surprisingly, his
brother Tomoo owns and manages several tanning salons in their
family hometown Fukushima. It was the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear disaster that brought United Brothers and Kerstin
Brätsch first together.
“Our actual collaboration started from a site of trauma and was
a way for us to rediscover light’s power”, says Arakawa. “As a
painter, Kerstin deals in various ways with the idea of light, and
its artificial construction, and as a tanning salon-owner Tomoo is
surrounded by the imitation of sunlight on a regular basis. Via
performative activations with Ei, the three of us are able to
elaborate on the theme of light in various ways and
iterations”.
The result of their latest collaboration, created upon
invitation by Max Mara, is a pair of sunglasses limited to
1000 models worldwide. For sale via Max Mara boutiques, their
design and fabrication is inspired by volcanoes and lava as the
source of glass. The resulating MM KB/UB is produced by eyewear
specialist Safilo. “We thought we could emphasise this connection
between the sun and the eyes in our collaboration with Max
Mara”.
So how did the design come about? First, the trio embarked on an
ambitious tour of site visits, exploring lava first-hand by
travelling to remote volcanoes. Their tour included the Hawaiian
archipelago.
“We went on a long and extensive Lava-hike on Big Island in
Hawaii – that experience was quite intense and beautiful. We were
hiking out to the active lava ocean entry and discovered how the
lava flows and we witnessed the power of the Halemaumau Crater in
the Kilauea Volcano.
“Walking on lava is like walking on glass. Being so close to
active lava seemed like we were observing a giant breathing
mammal”.
The three creatives then travelled to Padua in the North Italian
Veneto region to see how Safilo could make their ideas concrete.
“The site was very impressive. It was also good to meet not only
the designers and production managers but also the various artisans
creating sunglasses on site”.
This was just the third time Max Mara has give carte blanche to
creatives to design a pair of sunglasses; the 2018 MM KB/UB pair
features oversized rimless lenses while choice details recall the
artists’ volcanic inspiration. There are soft rubber temples coated
in a material derived from natural stone, a thin red lave-line
hides by the right temple. “Symbolically we were thinking about
glass and its equivalent matter; lava, as well as energy, light,
and natural forces when we chose the materials for the
sunglasses”.
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