Gaetano ‘Pesce’s Collaboration with Amouage Spotlighted at Milan Design Week 

MILAN — The colorful, thought-provoking legacy of late Italian architect and design genius Gaetano Pesce is a gift that keeps on giving.

If the 400 resin chairs Pesce designed in 2022 for Matthieu Blazy’s sophomore show for Bottega Veneta catapulted him back under the global spotlight and made his work resonate with a new generation of fashion and design enthusiasts, an off-the-radar showcase during Milan Design Week shed light on a work Pesce developed before passing away last year at age 84, one that intertwined his vibrant, experimental practice with the world of perfumery, instead.

Displayed at the Antonia Jannone Gallery here as part of a focused exhibition centered on his work as architect through sketches and renderings, the Oman collection of colorful chairs was developed with Omani luxury fragrance house Amouage.

At a cocktail on Thursday, the brand’s chief creative officer Renaud Salmon recalled how the partnership began three years ago, when he sent a package of Omani frankincense resin to the designer. 

“I was a big fan of his work for a while, but we didn’t know each other,” Salmon said. “Basically at some point I realized that I’m working with resin in my perfumes and he’s working with resin in design. So I thought that maybe he doesn’t even know my resin, and that’s when I sent him five kilograms of frankincense and wrote a nice letter. I was not expecting any answer, but to my surprise, he answered [saying] ‘What a beautiful story. I want to know more about it.’”

The two connected over the phone, before Pesce went M.I.A. for two months, Salmon said. Suddenly, he got an invitation to join the designer in New York, where Pesce was based and first moved to in 1980, after having lived in Venice, London, Helsinki, Finland, and Paris. Here Salmon was presented with “tons of ideas about actually using the frankincense as part of design objects. And this is where I discovered his whole universe.”

The collaborative bond grew stronger throughout the months. It peaked in spring 2023, when Salmon invited Pesce to what would become a revelatory trip to the frankincense trees valley of Wadi Dawkah, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Oman. 

“We didn’t know that it would be the last trip of Gaetano,” Salmon said. “I recall Gaetano in his wheelchair in the middle of the desert, looking at the frankincense tree. It was really strong. That’s when I understood that the project was more than a design one.”

Salmon recounted a specific anecdote that changed his own perspective on the collaboration. “They let us stay there for a few minutes just to contemplate the trees and [Pesce] asked me: ‘Why is the tree on the left different than the one on the right?’ I said: ‘Gaetano, I have no idea.’ And he told me: ‘I think because they are like human beings,’” said Salmon, underscoring that the project’s focus pivoted from design to concepts like diversity and “living together in harmony with nature but also with other human beings.”

“That’s what I loved about Gaetano, he was always telling me: ‘Renaud, I could make a chair that is very comfortable for people to sit down, but if that chair does not talk to the people and doesn’t carry a message, it’s a missed opportunity….Imagine: what if a chair would give you a smile every day? Wouldn’t that be beautiful?,’” Salmon continued. 

The conversation led Salmon to reconsider his own role at-large, too. “As a creator of fragrances, I would actually limit my role to creating things that smell really good,” he said. “For me, the biggest lesson [learned with this collaboration] is really not to hide yourself, not to forget your responsibility as an artist behind the commercial aspect of what you do,” he said about the importance of leveraging Amouage as a platform to convey the spirit of Oman and its values of generosity and hospitality on top of creating products that can be successful.

As Pesce returned to New York, he enlarged the focus from the resin to the tree itself, reprising its stylized shape in the designs. During the casting of the pieces, he also experimented for the first time with the combination of two polyurethanes — a resin and a gum — to strike the right balance between rigidity and elasticity. 

In particular, three designs are displayed at the Antonia Jannone Gallery, each embodying a different phase of the creative process.

The “Oman Chair” is the first in order, introducing the chairback’s supporting structure referencing the tree’s gnarled branches. The second piece is a variation on the design that pushes the concept further through the addition of the natural frankincense resin embedded in the chair’s structure.

Although it doesn’t feature the natural resin, the third piece, dubbed “Oman Throne,” is a tribute to the majestic shape of the tree and expresses Pesce’s daring and non-conformist approach to design with its imposing, gravity-defying proportions. 

Beside the eccentric shape, all pieces stand out for Pesce’s mood-boosting use of color, blending vibrant primary hues and bringing complementary nuances to life via transparency. 

“Every single chair is a unique piece, and actually that was part of the philosophy of Gaetano: He was always including in his projects the idea that a production process can trigger differences between objects,” Salmon said. 

At the moment there are around 20 pieces, some part of Salmon’s own collection and others available to purchase. A couple might remain in the hands of Pesce’s team, who is currently establishing a foundation dedicated to the late designer, Salmon teased. 

A sneak peek of the collaborative project was revealed at Art Basel Miami 2023, where objects like the “Oman Cabinet” were first presented. Other items were also exhibited in Pesce’s posthumous show at the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana during Milan Design Week last year.

“The project felt like it ended abruptly, but actually the good thing is that [Pesce] was able to complete it. And his legacy will live forever, because now it becomes the visual identity of Wadi Dawkah, too,” said Salmon, referencing the logo the designer created for the site. This is in the shape of a drop, containing the stylized frankincense tree and featuring Pesce’s signature cheerful smile and eye motifs.

With frankincense being a key ingredient of most of its fragrances, Amouage is a patron of the Wadi Dawkah site. Salmon said the long-term vision in such a role is going beyond merely sourcing and enhancing the material in the brand’s scents but to turn these processes into fully traceable, ethical and sustainable, as well as open the access to the ingredient to other perfume houses. 

“It’s a pretty unique approach in the industry, quite collaborative. And why do we do that? Because we think about Oman first. We want to develop the industry here,” Salmon said. He underscored how the company aims to make sure the ingredient remains accessible also in terms of prices and continues to support the local population by ensuring that revenues from its business go directly in the hands of harvesters, without intermediaries.

As reported, Amouage recently took a minority investment from the L’Oréal Group, which will support further development while preserving its independent vision. The company reported a 30 percent increase in sales for 2024, with annual retail sales now exceeding $260 million — about 2.5 times the growth rate of the global perfumery market.

The brand has 17 standalone stores across in Oman, the UAE, the U.S., China and Malaysia, and is distributed in more than 1,000 doors among department stores, perfumeries and airports. This year, Amouage plans to open new flagship boutiques in Rome, Riyadh and Singapore, in addition to expanding its headquarters and manufacturing facilities in Muscat.