Colour is a power which directly influences the soul.
(Wassily Kandinsky)
Silvia Magrini and Stefano Giovacchini believe in a world designed by colour. That is why, five years ago, when they opened their space in Via Passaglia, they wanted something unique inside it: a “colour bar”, a corner where colours are prepared as if they were cocktails, following recipes and precise measures. But let us proceed step by step.
It all begins with Stefano’s thesis (a painting student in Florence at the Academy of Fine Arts), which focuses on colour design, the planning of colour, considered at the time to border on the pioneering. After graduating, this young artist and designer worked for a company in Lucca, where he continued to champion the cause of his passion.
The encounter with Silvia (a painter), who would first become Stefano’s partner and then his wife, proved fundamental: together, the two embarked on a life journey that would see them side by side at work as well. Both firmly believe in the value of creativity and its application, and in 2003 they founded a studio together, DISEGNO COLORE ED INTERNI, where they deal with interior design, increasingly exploring decoration as an expressive language and the experiential dimension of colour.
Months and years pass; moving forward, Stefano immerses himself ever more deeply in design, going on to found (in 2017) the company R3DIRECT (specialised in the use of recycled plastic material applied to large-scale 3D printing). Silvia becomes a highly skilled artisan of colour: she is almost a tailor for the way she manages to “sew” it onto people. In 2015, together, Silvia and Stefano open their showroom-shop in Via Passaglia, which is precisely home to the wonderful “colour bar”: ever-new experiments reinvent ancient techniques, in what is a true atelier of pigments. Here, face powders in a thousand shades rest in transparent glass jars, eager to be chosen to give life to something beautiful and new. Here colours are born (with infinite combinations, different each time) and receive a name of their own, which will allow them to be entered into a proper catalogue for future use. Serving as furnishing accessories for the space are objects made by 3D printing by R3DIRECT, such as the evocative Magma lamp.
Stefano and Silvia are two contemporary artisans, in continuous search of new languages, to reinvent tradition without, however, distorting it excessively; their incessant creative evolution stems above all from curiosity, from never taking anything for granted, from never being content. After all, where others saw limits, they saw opportunities.
