RGifting an object for the home is a safe choice. Easier than choosing a perfume or a fashion accessory, unless you know the recipient very well. It is less personal and has one big advantage: it can always come in handy. The important thing is that the gift is not bulky, or it may seem like an invasion of the field. The risk is minimized by focusing on accessories: lamps, small decorative objects, perhaps with a Christmas theme, a pillow, a centrepiece… It’s the thought that counts (and if the object is well thought out, it’s better).
Designer gifts: special editions
They are revisited icon-objects, collector’s items – or for every day – proposed in a new guise that makes them even more desirable. Fornasetti’s muse, Lina Cavalieri, a 19th-century soprano, has become a well-known face thanks to the “Tema e Variazioni” ceramics: a series of dishes and accessories, or as the multiple art catalog says, where she is depicted each time with a different expression.
In the new series, entitled “United for Peace”, it is framed by the symbol of peace. The purpose is beneficial: to support the humanitarian organization CBM Italia Onluswhich in the Ukraine emergency is committed to guaranteeing the rights of people with disabilities. Among the special design-themed editions of 2022, also the “Nessino” by Artemide, a lamp that made history, entered the permanent collection of the MoMA in New York. For Christmas it comes out in a new colour, fiery red. Definitely festive.
Big brands at small prices
Not all Masters items cost a fortune. The Finnish Oiva Toikka, artist and designer, a legend for admirers, is best known for the collection Birds, the glass birds, which today go to auction and have a collection of their own. But there are pieces with his signature that are much more affordable. An example are the red apples, also made of glass, to decorate the tree according to the Scandinavian tradition, a perfect and not too demanding gift.
The “Girard Ornaments” by Vitra can be used as decorations for the tree but also to decorate the house in all seasons.
And there are “masterful” decorations, Christmas but not too much, also in the Vitra catalogue: the gilded ornaments by Alexander Girard, who in post-war America distanced himself from the austerity of modernism with his light touch and passion for folk. His dove of peace is a message as well as a gift. Universal.
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