Jetgala - MAR-MAY 2023

100 E THE STORY GOES ON Citterio’s new collection for Maxalto is designed to work with various pieces from the brand’s recent and distant past T he communication material for Maxalto’s 2023 Collection opens with the disclaimer ‘Ce n’est pas une collection’, which is French for ‘It is not a collection’. The phrase calls to mind Magritte and his paintingTheTreachery of Images which bears the inscription, Ceci n’est pas une pipe (This is not a pipe) to warn viewers that they are not looking at an actual pipe but a mere representation. In a similar vein, the 2023 Maxalto Collection, designed and coordinated by Antonio Citterio and shown at Maison&Objet Paris in January, is not a collection per se but merely a chapter— albeit a strong one—in the Maxalto story which began nearly three decades ago. “The new pieces designed by art director Antonio Citterio… are therefore not a ‘collection’,” the communique tells us, “because they fit seamlessly into the catalogue, dialoguing with its elements, often in a surprising assonance of opposites thanks to unprecedented forms of organic inspiration that contrast with the more formal ones of the Déco aesthetic.” A little too heady, a little too Foucault, maybe even a tad pretentious. But the actual pieces in the Collection are anything but. “A new chapter that does not distort, but if anything, reinforces a stylistic signature that does not mimic the manners of but rather, one that lives and evolves together with the society it represents.” Indeed, the Maxalto 2023 Collection offers “new profiles and sizes, innovative materials and updated colours, not to mention re-issues of historical elements, revised to be more solid and functional. “There is, above all, a blend of culture and territory, of creativity and of practice, that even in the industrial paradigm, remains craftsmanship.” It is also, it must be pointed out, Made in Italy.