April 24, 2024 |
If the eyes are the window to the soul, the desk, you could say, is the pathway into the mind of the creative. Being the nosy bunch we are, we asked a group of our favourite designers, PRs and friends in fashion to let us inside their offices to see how they work. Expect pristine desks from the finest vintage dealers, well-kept office plants and, of course, the occasional bit of clutter. Fashion folk are only human, after all…
Donatella Versace, designer
10: Where did you buy your desk?
DV: I designed my desk with my team and it was made for me when we moved into our new office building.
10: Do you like a tidy desk or a messy one?
DV: It’s a little all over the place when I am working but I always leave it tidy.
10: What’s the most sentimental thing you have on it?
DV: The photograph of my beautiful dogs. They bring me such joy and comfort.
10: What’s the proudest thing you’ve created while sitting at your desk?
DV: Versace!
Anoushka Borghesi, global head of public relations and media, Giorgio Armani
10: Where did you buy your desk?
AB: Mr Armani likes everybody to have the same desks so I was given this one upon arrival in the company 13 years ago and it moves with me. This is fourth office I’ve had.
10: Do you like a tidy desk or a messy one?
AB: I’m both tidy and messy, so it really depends on my mood and how busy I am. During fashion weeks or a salon you will see me buried behind piles of magazines which I won’t have time to see. But if I’m feeling relaxed, I will start tidying up and rearranging objects, only to see things clutter up the next day!
10: What’s the most sentimental thing you have on it?
AB: It’s surely the mood board I have behind my desk, which is comprised of notes from my colleagues, images I love, special moments throughout my time at Armani.
10: What’s the proudest thing you’ve created while sitting at your desk?
AB: The relationship with my boss and my team. It’s not a physical creation but a bond that motivates me every day!
Bianca Saunders, designer
10: Where did you buy your desk?
BS: It’s from Ikea, my mum gave it to me. I hold on or try to reuse furniture in multiple ways. It’s a great size to host my plants and the books I look at for research. I’ve collected a lot of books over the years.
10: Do you like a tidy desk or a messy one?
BS: I like a tidy desk even though mine is quite messy at the moment. I feel like the best way to describe me is organised chaos. It does get messy but I try to make sure that it’s tidied at the end of the day so it’s fresh for the next productive morning ahead.
10: What’s the most sentimental thing you have on it?
BS: The glass shell ashtray that I bought from a market in Switzerland. It holds my Palo Santo wood, which is supposed to refresh the energy in the room when burnt. I also love my plants on my desk; this calla lily I have at the moment was a gift from a previous intern. I am currently a mother of seven plants and they are thriving.
10: What’s the proudest thing you’ve created while sitting at your desk?
BS: The Bianca Saunders AW24 collection.
Casey Cadwallader, creative director, Mugler
10: Where did you buy your desk?
CC: I found it in an online auction. It is a desk designed by Bernard Dequet for Protis, France, from the 1980s.
10: Do you like a tidy desk or a messy one?
CC: I like it tidy but it’s rarely that.
10: What’s the most sentimental thing you have on it?
CC: My camera. It’s filled with so many good memories.
10: What’s the proudest thing you’ve created while sitting at your desk?
CC: Beyoncé’s bee look for the Renaissance Tour last year.
MARINE SERRE, designer
10: Where did you buy your desk?
MS: I bought it when I started my company at the Clignancourt flea market [in Paris]. I met a craftsman and asked him for a custom-made hybrid desk that could also be used as a cutting table. It’s a beautiful classic, made of solid oak and iron.
10: Do you like a tidy desk or a messy one?
MS: I collect a lot of unusual, rare or unique objects. I like my work environment to be tidy but lively. Each object has a symbolic place within the diversity of memories and totemic objects I collect.
10: What’s the most sentimental thing you have on it?
MS: My metallic timbale, in which I drink my chai. A shell fossil given to me by my design team, some stones, a ceramic heart that’s a present from one of my designers, a made-to-measure, unique piece of jewellery, photos, plants… And maybe the most unusual object that was offered to me: a concrete sprue [mould] shaped as a moon, found in the street. It’s a real bric- a-brac of objects close to my heart.
10: What’s the proudest thing you’ve created while sitting at your desk?
MS: There is not one thing in particular, but a chain of things.
Alessandro Sartori, artistic director, Zegna
10: Where did you buy your desk?
AS: My personal desk, the one where I draw and where I feel at home every time I sit down, is a large living room table in glass and leather with hand-forged metal legs from the Baxter brand. The coffee-coloured leather edge is warm and material, while the heavy glass top is smooth and perfect for drawing.
10: Do you like a tidy desk or a messy one?
AS: Normally, while I’m working, it’s full of photographs, references, sheets of paper with notes – I love writing words – and lots and lots of drawings. In the evening, when I finish working, it’s perfectly tidy.
10: What’s the most sentimental thing you have on it?
AS: I keep some of my most cherished books, in particular a series of volumes dedicated to the workwear of the 1930s/40s found in a beautiful Parisian vintage shop.
10: What’s the proudest thing you’ve created while sitting at your desk?
AS: During the lockdown I practically always worked on this table and the most beautiful things I designed on it were the silhouettes of the Zegna collection, presented in January 2021, the AW21 fashion show. I remember with emotion the hours spent working on that collection.
Ib Kamara, editor-in-chief at Dazed, creative director, Off-White
10: Where did you buy your desk?
IK: I don’t think I’ve ever actually bought a desk for myself. Off-White and Dazed are the first companies that I’ve ever had fixed ‘offices’ in so I’ve inherited things from the team. When I style, I travel all the time so I don’t normally have a fixed place. I usually work from my laptop on a sofa or in a hotel room. The photo I sent is of my favourite office in the Off-White building in Milan – the Home/Objects team. It’s so creative and where I love to go to be inspired. I’m actually going to be making some more furniture soon. Maybe I’ll try and design my perfect desk!
10: Do you like a tidy desk or a messy one?
IK: I think creativity involves some mess… but I’m pretty neat. There’s always paper for doodling and taking notes etc. I like working from paper some of the time so there’s always lots of random scrap paper after meetings.
10: What’s the proudest thing you’ve created while sitting at your desk?
IK: This is tough. I’m proud of so much but I think there are two things that mean a lot to me. One is my first print edition of Dazed and the second is the first full show collection I did for Off-White. Both have been massive team efforts but I’m so proud of the teams I work with and have built over the years. It’s so inspiring seeing things start as a tiny concept or doodle or bullet point and then watch it all come together in such a beautiful way.
Sébastien Meyer, co-creative director of Coperni
10: Where did you buy your desk?
SM: This is a very special desk that I designed myself with USM, the modular Switzerland furniture company. We’ve had the chance to collaborate with them for a while for our popups and retail spaces. In 2021 they asked us to redesign their Parisian showroom and for the occasion I created seven pieces linked to the invention of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners Lee. The desk was one of the pieces from the exhibition and it inspires me to work on it every day.
10: Do you like a tidy desk or a messy one?
SM: A tidy one! I’m a bit of a nerd. I like it clean and organised. I mean, the shape of the desk itself evokes this idea of geometrical and futuristic rigour.
10: What’s the most sentimental thing you have on it?
SM: If I have to be romantic I would say a picture of Arnaud [Vaillant], my husband and partner. But I’m not a mushy person, so I would say my iPad. Apple offered it to me a few years ago when we did a presentation at their store on the Champs-Elysées. Since then I’ve never left it. I learned how to sketch and design on my iPad and it changed my life.
10: What’s the proudest thing you’ve created while sitting at your desk?
SM: The Meteorite Swipe bag. I still can’t believe we found a meteorite that arrived on earth from the moon more than 50,000 years ago and we turned it into a bag.
Thebe Magugu, designer
10: Where did you buy your desk?
TM: At a discount furniture store in downtown Johannesburg. They had so many that I bought five, so we don’t have much space at the studio because it’s just overrun by glass tables!
10: Do you like a tidy desk or a messy one?
TM: It might not look like it now – because I am working on a collection – but I prefer a clean desk because my mind feels cluttered when I am trying to work in a cluttered space. I can appreciate that I’ve changed from when I was younger. I loved the messiness of a space because I used to find that very interesting pairings could happen (e.g. I see one fabric mistakenly thrown next to another, then I become obsessed with the contrast). But now, I feel like clean spaces form a great base for creative ideation.
10: What’s the most sentimental thing you have on it?
TM: A book I published with [director] Kristin-Lee Moolman, [editor-in-chief of Dazed] Ib Kamara and Dr Erica De Green, where we went to my hometown and photographed and styled the people of Kimberley – strangers, friends, family – and presented it as my AW20 collection for Paris Fashion Week.
10: What’s the proudest thing you’ve created while sitting at your desk?
TM: My Heirloom Shirt project, where customers can create their own wax-print shirts with members of their own family [printed on]. I think, so many times, history and its figures have always been imposed on to us, and I love the idea of taking back and empowering others to fashion their own history with their own key, formative figures. It will certainly be one of those defining, legacy projects of mine, where people go to preserve those they love through the power of cloth.
Taken from Issue 59 of 10 Men – PRECISION, CRAFT, LUXURY – is out NOW. Order your copy here.
