During the Frieze Art Fair, London, last month Brazilian interior designers the Campana Brothers, united with fellow Brazilians the equally idiosyncratic shoe brand Melissa, to create Barocco. This collaboroation provided London’s Galleria Melissa concept store with an unmistakable dose of eccentric Campana soul the new exhibition, dubbed The Harmony of Imperfection, took the immersive space to elaborately ornate new extremes and also marks 10 years of creative collaboration between the Campanas and Melissa.

A testament to the unexpected, the new work found the Campanas experimenting further with found materials and incorporating a number of traditional cultural reference points gone awry.

From the grand piazzas of Rome to the favelas of São Paulo, it’s all there and Glass spoke with one half of the Campana Brothers, Humberto, about the hybridism behind their latest exhibition and the collaboration that fueled it all.

What made you want to set up shop in London during Frieze Week this year?
Because everything happens here, you know, all the investors flock here for the security reasons, you know from Paris, New York, Milan, Asia, everybody … London today is the capital, the cultural capital of the planet, so it’s very important to be present, to be seen here.

Melissa concept store in Covent Garden, London. Collaboration with Campana.

This collaboration sees you branching into fashion, what has your relationship been with garments prior to this?
We have been working with and have put together collaborations for fashion brands across Europe, from radical fashion interior based work commissioned by lucrative brands such as Fendi, to Lacoste, who we collaborated with on a collection of limited edition Polo’s. For Brazil’s H Stern jewelry we produced a collection of pieces in collaboration with a friend of ours Judy Blame, which was a really interesting collection.

You know I think the creators of the 21st century are multi-disciplinary; I like to visit other universes such as landscaping, architecture, gardening, fashion, design. I’m very curious; my eyes are very open to everything around me.

Melissa concept store in Covent Garden, London. Collaboration with Campana.

Your collaboration with Melissa, Barroco, comes along with the tagline The Harmony of Imperfection, what value does supposed ‘imperfection’ add to a piece of design?
From the imperfection, from the mistakes I learn quite a lot. Sometimes we are so conscious about how I’m going to do this, but as it happens that sometimes does not go so well. Then we discover a new universe, you know, so I’m very interested about this.

When we created our first collection, I was a lawyer, and me and my brother we started being known as designers in ’89, when we made a collection and we named it Uncomfortable. It was always based, you know, on the imperfections, things that bring humanity.

It was very rusty, aggressive, full of mistakes, but was strong and had all the seeds of our work. Most of the things we still do to this day stemmed from this first collection. I’m very curious about, I don’t like people so perfect, I don’t like “beauty”, I like the human in all of us, that’s what touches you and what attracts me.

Melissa concept store in Covent Garden, London. Collaboration with Campana.

The cultural clash between Italy and Brazil is an interesting one. How do you think these two Latin locales are able to work together so effectively?
It’s funny because we’ve worked with the Roman Baroque. A very powerful aesthetic, and that’s the way we deconstruct the Roman Baroque with contemporary elements like razor blades, mosquitoes, you know a little bit nasty, because people realise, “oh! Gillette!”

Our universe tells histories, we are storytellers and people are always curious to the narrative in our objects.

Melissa concept store in Covent Garden, London. Collaboration with Campana.

Did you have any particulare ambitions when you approached the collaboration?
First of all, I had to consider how I would like to make it comfortable, the first shoes, the Baladina, a project from 10 years ago, we filled with space in order that the feet were not so warm. So, comfort, I wanted to make something comfortable. Because we started with uncomfortable [laughs].

Melissa concept store in Covent Garden, London. Collaboration with Campana.

Both you and Melissa are powerhouse design forces in Brazil, how would you say your creative collaboration with Melissa is able to flourish so well?
Most of our works are handcrafted, and with Melissa they have allowed us to be democratic, because there is always this demand in Brazil, “oh you should do something democratic”.

I think the Melissa collaboration allowed us to bring handcrafts to an industry level, we are very well known, as shoe makers in Brazil. All the girls love our work and are always asking what else we are going to launch. We have a big fan club in Brazil.

Melissa concept store in Covent Garden, London. Collaboration with Campana.

Throughout the new Barroco collaboration and in many of your previous works, you trace a stylised line through your origins in Brazil. What makes you want to track the origins of your background in your designs?
I guess Brazil is a new country that allows you to be crazy, in the sense of a positive way, and in a very bad way.

I guess Brazil is a bipolar country, completely ups and downs, so I guess this makes you alive, very ready to be prepared for a crisis, because since I was born, Brazil had had its ups and downs. This makes us very flexible, in terms of being prepared for the next thing.

Brazilian people are very sweet, very open, curious. And also there is a modernity. Artistically Brazil is very powerful in this very moment, especially Sao Paolo. I live in Sao Paolo and it’s not exactly an easy city, so that makes you need to find beauty, to construct beauty, inner beauty, in order to survive.

The inner beauty for me is to work with furniture, to create, make myself alive, not to be oppressed by cares.

by Liam Feltham

To find out more about the Campana Brothers go here

To find out more about Melissa go here

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Glass Online fashion writer

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