We have forgotten how to touch. Interiors are increasingly designed for the camera, not the body — and somewhere between the render and the final photograph, the sensation of the surface under the hand disappears. This is exactly what was discussed at the salon “Venezia” on May 13, where those who design spaces for others gathered, and where objects from the Genoese manufactory GIOBAGNARA were shown for the first time in Kyiv.
The event took place on May 13 at the Kyiv salon of luxury interiors “Venezia” (13/1 Velyka Vasylkivska St.). Photo: Maksym Drobinenko
GIOBAGNARA: from a couture vision to an empire of leather craftsmanship
The central event of the evening was the introduction of the guests to the philosophy and innovations of the Italian brand GIOBAGNARA — a world leader in creating elegant interior products made of the highest quality leather. The brand was presented exclusively by Alla Makogon, founder of the Successo agency.
Kostiantyn Kovshevatskyi, Alla Makogon and Alyona Cherepanova (director of the Kyiv salon “Venezia”). Photo: Maksym Drobinenko
Visionary approach and brand evolution
The history of GIOBAGNARA is closely linked to the family heritage and the port city of Genoa. As the speaker said, the founder and CEO of the company, Giorgio Bagnara, was born into a family that had been nurturing the “Art of Fine Living” for three generations, so he felt a passion for his work at a very early age. The Bagnara family has been manufacturing specialized accessories for yachts since 1939. According to Alla Makogon, the marine environment dictated extremely strict technological requirements for the brand, because products on ships are constantly exposed to salt water, moisture and wind. This prompted the factory to develop a unique Outdoor Leather technology — an innovative tanning process that makes thin, delicate leather extremely resistant to external factors.
GIOBAGNARA's head office in Genoa. Photo: GIOBAGNARA
In the late 1990s, Giorgio Bagnara noticed an apparent paradox. Leather, the dominant material in high fashion, was hardly perceived as a suitable material for home accessories. In an effort to change this, he founded the GIOBAGNARA brand in 1999. According to the expert, together with his wife Vanessa, he first moved their design studios and workshops to the old docks of the port of Genoa, and later to a famous historic building near the Genoese marina, where, surrounded by authentic beauty, the company took a significant step forward. Today, it is no longer just a factory in the usual sense, but a large individual atelier, where more than 150 craftsmen carry out delicate work exclusively by hand. Alla Makogon emphasized that the manufactory has impeccable mastery of traditional handmade techniques, the ability to give leather clear architectural volumes, and a masterful combination of materials — from leather and precious woods to metal and acrylic.
The handcrafted Alghero bathroom set by Riviere. Each piece is wrapped in hand-crafted calfskin, elegantly complementing the chrome or gold-plated brass accents of the soap dispensers and jars. Photo: Riviere
"GIOBAGNARA is not just a factory in the usual sense, but a large individual atelier, where more than 150 craftsmen perform delicate work exclusively by hand,” — Alla Makogon
Alla Makogon emphasized: the brand quickly gained a reputation as a leading expert, which allowed Giorgio Bagnara to strategically expand its portfolio. In 2015, he acquired Rabitti 1969, which specializes in working with thick saddle leather, in 2018 — the Pigment France brand with its unique leather-upholstering skills and wicker and rattan weaving, and in 2022 — the Italian luxury lifestyle brand Riviere. According to the speaker, an important milestone was the appointment of French designer Stéphane Parmentier as creative director in 2017. He brought an elegant asceticism to the collections, drawing inspiration from classical antiquity and Japanese restraint. Today, the brand's palette includes more than 200 colours of high-quality leather and suede, and the catalogue contains about 6000 items.
Giorgio and Vanessa Bagnara. Photo source: Maison Sia
Synergy of a creative duo and global collaborations
The success of GIOBAGNARA is the result of the seamless creative partnership of the Bagnara couple. Alla Makogon emphasized this, noting: “Giorgio Bagnara is a true visionary and the heart of the manufactory. He is a man who believes that luxury is not hidden in logos, but in touch. He personally manages the work of the workshops, bringing to life both the main collections and exclusive private orders. Immersed in the very essence of production, he daily hones the mastery of form, controlling each stage of product creation. His wife Vanessa brings harmony and sophistication to the collections. Her impeccable taste and modern feminine vision of aesthetics allow the brand to create accessories that set trends. In an atmosphere of sincere cooperation and meticulous attention to detail, they are shaping the future of the brand. Combining many years of experience and intuition, the Bagnara couple creates not just interior items, but solutions that perfectly meet the needs of the most demanding clients.”
This spirit of collaboration has allowed the brand to become a key partner for world design icons. In particular, Alla Makogon focused in detail on the Elie Saab x GIOBAGNARA collaboration, presented in 2024. The collaboration, she explained, transfers the DNA of high fashion to everyday objects — embodying the philosophy of "Home as an extension of one's wardrobe". Elie Saab uses the same aesthetic codes as in his couture dresses, in particular symmetry and purity of lines. The speaker showed the guests how GIOBAGNARA masterfully uses special embossing and metal inserts in this full-fledged lifestyle line, imitating fittings and the Elie Saab Haute Couture monogram.
Alla Makogon demonstrates GIOBAGNARA leather samples. Photo: Maksym Drobinenko
Another striking example, according to Alla Makogon, is a joint collection with American designer Kelly Wearstler, which embodies organic modernism and a deliberate departure from conventional classicism. According to the expert, Kelly draws inspiration from natural objects, seashells, stones, soil erosion and loves to mix cold cast aluminium with warm leather. That is why the items look like unique art objects found on the Malibu coast, but at the same time remain practical accessories, embodying the concept of “Functional Art”.
“The interior today should speak for us — about values, about taste, about who we are,” — Kostiantyn Kovshevatskyi
Dozens of architects and designers gathered at the Kyiv salon “Venezia”. Photo: Maksym Drobinenko
Separately, Alla Makogon noted the brand's strategic partnership with Poltrona Frau, a titan of the furniture world, calling this union the real magic of “Leather on Leather”. She explained that Poltrona Frau are the kings of the interior scale and iconic armchairs, while GIOBAGNARA serves as an indispensable production partner and acts as a true jeweller in the world of small forms and leather accessories. The products from the limited GIOBAGNARA Art Edition series, created in collaboration with artists, have an equally exclusive look. As Alla said, these items are produced in such a limited edition — only 12 copies in the world — that each of them has its own serial number and signatures of the authors, each one a collector's item in its own right.
Summing up the presentation, Alla Makogon addressed the architects with professional advice: “We all know this moment: the project is completed, the furniture is arranged, but the space lacks that final button. GIOBAGNARA is an architect’s secret weapon. It is an opportunity to close the issue of “empty shelves” and coffee tables not with random decor, but with objects from the DNA of world design icons, while maintaining integrity and the highest level of execution in every detail.”
Sculptural fragments of lovers' hands from the Amarna period of art. Photo: Maksym Drobinenko
“Leather. Touch is a Must”
The conceptual and emotional continuation of the evening was a lecture by the editor-in-chief of PRAGMATIKA.MEDIA Kostiantyn Kovshevatskyi. The speaker offered the guests a deep historical and philosophical excursion designed to prove that touch is the fundamental basis for understanding space, comfort, and true luxury.
The evolution of touch: from ritual to intimacy
Kostiantyn Kovshevatskyi demonstrated how humanity's attitude towards physical contact with material changed over the millennia. In the ancient world, touch had an exclusively sacred, alienated character. The first historical breakthrough occurred during the period of Amarna art in Ancient Egypt (c. 1345 BC) during the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Akhenaten allowed artists to depict people as real — with their anatomical defects or deformities. It was then that the process of touch in art first became intimate and human (as exemplified by the sculptural fragments of lovers' hands, kept in Berlin).
During the presentation, Kostiantyn Kovshevatskyi talked about how humanity's attitude towards physical contact with material has changed. Photo: Maksym Drobinenko
The next great expressions of tactility appeared in the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Great masters — Michelangelo Buonarroti (in the unique signed sculpture “Pieta”, where the fingers of the Virgin Mary literally press into the flesh of Christ) and Lorenzo Bernini (in the work “Apollo and Daphne”, where marble under the hands of the god turns into living tree bark) — brought tactility to the absolute. GIOBAGNARA works with the same logic — form, texture, contrast of materials. But in object design, not in marble.
Scala Round Stool leather stool by GIOBAGNARA, created by designer Stéphane Parmentier. Photo: kookudesign.com
Space as a manifesto: from Versailles to Frankfurt kitchen
The speaker also analysed how the interior reflects the social status and psychology of a person. Louis XIV's Versailles was not a dwelling, but a political machine for demonstrating greatness, where even touching the king's clothes determined his place in the court hierarchy. In contrast, Louis XV and Marie Antoinette in the Petit Trianon created the first examples of a chamber, private space, where the interior finally began to speak of personal taste, texture and colour, and the queen sought to hide from publicity. The radical antonym of luxury in the 1926th century was the famous Frankfurt kitchen by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (XNUMX). It was a space of pure function and ergonomics, where a woman was reduced to an operator of a domestic machine. There was rational thinking, but no room for the senses.
Kostiantyn Kovshevatskyi talks about the philosophy of wabi-sabi using the example of a Raku teacup. Photo: Maksym Drobinenko
The philosophy of wabi-sabi and the phenomenon of heterotopia
A completely different view of touch has long existed in the East. In Japan, the philosophy of wabi-sabi teaches that a thing should age beautifully, be restrained, not flashy, but deep. A striking example is the famous Raku tea bowls, which are hand-moulded without a potter's wheel. They do not have perfect European symmetry, but each unevenness tells a story about the person who created them and about the one who holds them in their hands. This Japanese asymmetrical and sensual view of the world at the end of the XNUMXth century upended the way Parisian Impressionists saw the world and gave impetus to the development of the Art Deco style — the last great total style that encompassed everything from architecture to René Lalique's glass. Emerging from the horrors of the First World War, the world rediscovered its appetite for life and expressed that hunger through material, colour, and form.
The space of the salon “Venezia”. Photo: Maksym Drobinenko
Kostiantyn Kovshevatskyi linked this context to the concept of heterotopia, formulated by the French philosopher Michel Foucault. A heterotopia is an “other space,” a special place (like a museum, a theatre, a cruise ship, or even a luxury car and a private park, like the Ukrainian “Sofiivka”), which has its own rules, changes our social role, and transforms us.
“Utilitarian comfort is no longer enough. A person wants space to speak for them — about values, about taste, about who they are. The objects that you touch every day are the true language of the interior. And this is where heterotopia begins: a space where you become yourself,” concluded Kostiantyn Kovshevatskyi.
