ROMEO GIGLI | 8 carpets in raw silk
I have dedicated my life to the search for primitive nomadic carpets and I have almost become immune to extraordinary materials, designs and colours.
Thousands of years have cancelled all that we can do without and delivered only that which we truly need: protection, soul and beauty. One hundred centuries ago these same pieces were being perfected and since then it has no longer been possible to improve them. They have reached our times and continue to astound us with their eternal modernity. This is why I have always had problems with carpets that are made today: contemporary designers tend to approach them just as they would paper, thus forgetting the importance of their use, size and material as well as their colours and thickness. Romeo has the necessary boldness to break away from this superficiality. Who could be more suited for daring to make combinations of intense colours or penetrating the depth of rare textile materials, or even understanding the balance between a design and its use? These same sensitivities which spurred thousands of humble nomadic fingers for thousand of years are the same which conferred sublime qualities to otherwise useless knots.
Raffaele Carrieri
BETWEEN TWO LAYERS OF SKY
A carpet has always been a space between the ground and the spirit, a place both of prayer and rest for the body. It can fly with the weight of flesh and the lightness of the soul. This is why I thought about using my carpets to recount the origin of everything: a huge big bang and an original primary movement which breaks away, expands and eventually explodes freely. Cosmic energy, graffiti of meteors and trails engraved with comets contract before unwinding and exploding with a flash of light.
In the two series of drawings which I produced, I wanted to transmit the feeling of this explosion: a body of light tries to find its path by freeing itself from a constraint which for a period had succeeded in holding it firmly and imposing upon it an order. Thus its sole purpose had become the anticipation of its own freedom and ability to expand.
Very often, despite sitting entirely on the ground and being completely in touch with it, carpets are compared to the sky. Perhaps this is because they have always represented a universe, a field of forces and a space – which may at first appear closed – but which is in reality full of the most varied narrations to reflect the infinite territory within the dreams of nomadic folk.
These carpets of mine do not recount a specific story, but instead evoke a thousand and one novellas. They speak of a vision which is as ancient as the universe itself: a force which tries to escape from itself with the gracefulness of a simple gesture; a definitive but gentle move which asserts itself without having to shout, through the use of a colour that spirals towards infinity within the memory of the eyes.
In the portions which I designed you will perhaps see stars, or maybe even flowers… for me, however, that form represents an ancient ritualistic dance that can be found wherever forces attract and repel each other and colour and light are engaged in battle which produces a continuous soaring glow.
Lying on a carpet, gazing upwards, I feel as if I am suspended between two layers of sky.
Romeo Gigli
A carpet has always been
a space between the ground
and the spirit, a place both
of prayer and rest for the body.
It can fly with the weight of flesh
and the lightness of the soul.
A carpet has always been
a space between the ground
and the spirit, a place both
of prayer and rest for the body.
It can fly with the weight of flesh
and the lightness of the soul.
