MABEO x FENDI: The Kompa Collection presentation
DS.WRITER:
Σοφία Θρουβάλα
The Mabeο brand was founded by and named after designer Peter Mabeo in 2006, in Botswana of North Africa. The now well-known designer and his team created a powerful network of communication with the fields of advertising and design, working on important projects in Africa, Europe and America. The main goal of Mabeο is to design and craft objects of a traditional, one could say, aesthetic, incorporating local elements of the African continent and mainly of Botswana, promoting their identity and showcasing their cultural heritage.
The central idea is maintaining pure raw materials, quality of craftsmanship and techniques of handling natural materials but with a contemporary direction. A basic characteristic of Mabeο’s production is the honest rendering of tradition, through a minimalist, contemporary and ecological design approach. Indeed, all of the members of the Mabeο family work in a traditional way, as artisans of a small community with a prominent dialect, which endeavours to promote the local element and communicate it creatively through collaborations, local as well as global, leaving the minimum possible environmental footprint, while also introducing the interested in design to a cultural condition to which one has little access or which isn’t so much represented and familiar. Of great importance here is the fact that tradition is not appropriated nor “taught” and mediated, but on the contrary, it’s promoted by local artisans through applied design.
Recently, the Mabeο team designed a collection of 10 pieces titled Kompa, in collaboration with the Roman luxury brand Fendi. Fendi (Kim Jones, Silvia Venturini Fendi & Delfina Delettrez Fendi) commissioned Peter Mabeo and his team to jointly create furniture, emphasising the traditional craftsmanship of Botswana and the minimalist forms that have become a hallmark of the brand. The Kompa collection was showcased past November in Design Miami 21.
The title Kompa means complete, compact, something that is a distinctive characteristic of all the objects that form the collection. It’s not however a title representing the qualities of the chosen materials, or at least it’s not just that, since it also reveals the holistic approach that Mabeο’s studio chose for this collaboration. The “compact” part also refers to the team’s work mode in creating the collection. The dissimilarity between objects as well as their coordination into a whole evidently composed of similarities has to do with the relationship between designers and craftspersons, with the division of the creation process into multiple tasks so that through agreeing and disagreeing, a system of consistent objects can arise. The final shape of the objects is pleasing to the eye, and it’s as if each part constitutes the continuation of another.
The whole collection is inspired by Fendi, however, two pieces in particular are a direct reference to the house, a tribute to the collaboration. The first one, the Efo stool, uses the iconic double F as a pattern, forming the furniture piece, combining two distinct qualities, two different materials: clay and the traditional panga panga wood, creating a balance between material, technique and craft process, that is, between tradition and luxury. However, even though these sculpturally rendered stools fit into one another perfectly, they can also be used separately, maintaining their independence, just like the collaborating brands.
The second piece referencing Fendi is the Maduo chair. Specifically, the chair is a rendition of a piece of o’ lock jewellery, designed by Delfina Delettrez Fendi for the Roman house. The processing of the form aims to emphasise the materials of Mabeο and maintain, on one hand, the sumptuous refinement that characterises jewellery, while, on the other hand, the robust construction inherent to a good and practical furniture piece.
The collaboration lives up to its name with its objects comprising a whole that is made of individual and independent parts. The Loma stool imparts a sense of incompletion, yet seemingly can be completed in the imagination of the spectator/user by following its suggestive form and the indication of its subsequence. Likewise, the Chichira cabinet playfully forms volumes, maintaining the same pattern throughout all of the furniture’s aspects, which is rendered with great emphasis on tradition and handcrafting.
All ten pieces are inspired by and openly reference the iconic “Peekaboo” Fendi handbag, while in the official launch of the collection in Miami, among the furniture, a video showcasing the Peekaboo handbags was projecting, resulting in an interrelating collaboration, promoting both the luxurious aesthetic of Fendi as well as the environmental approach of Mabeο, through a “folkloric”, one could say, minimalism.
Lastly, what is most interesting here is the way in which these two elements can be successfully amalgamated, without the result leaning more towards one or the other direction, and this constitutes Peter Mabeo’s greatest success, taking on and creatively processing something different than what previously inspired him and rendering it through his own aesthetic, while also further establishing his team’s identity in the final result. Mabeo seems very interested in exploring new territory through collaborations ‘It’s so incredibly significant for me to have an opportunity to question and to experiment, to try and do things that are outside of typical ways of thinking’, while on Fendi’s part this collaboration seems to “complete” an intangible aesthetic and “ideological” relationship between the creators. ‘I immediately saw a link between his work and Fendi,’ (Delettrez Fendi).
Installation view at Design Miami. From left: Gabi-Gabi sculpture, prototype of the Foro chair in clay, Loma stool and Maduo chair. Photography: Robin Hill
Loma stool by MABEO studio
Chichira Cabinet by Mabeo Studio
Left, inspired by one of Delfina Delettrez Fendi’s jewelry designs, the ‘Maduo’ chair was made by artisans from Mmankgodi. Right, a wooden version of the ‘Loma’ stool and the ‘Foro’ chair’s armrests taking shape. Photography: David Nana Opoku Ansah
Frontpage Image: Ocean Drive Magazine FENDI and Mabeo Release New Collection At Design Miami Photography: Robin Hill
IMAGES:
https://www.designboom.com/design/fendi-mabeo-kompa-collection-miami-2021-furniture-12-01-2021/
https://www.wallpaper.com/design/fendi-peter-mabeo-collaboration-design-miami-2021
SOURCES:
https://www.wallpaper.com/design/fendi-peter-mabeo-collaboration-design-miami-2021
https://www.mabeofurniture.com/
https://trueafrica.co/article/a-design-life-with-peter-mabeo/
https://www.weareafricatravel.com/contemporary-africa/making-africa-peter-mabeo/