MILESTONESWorking with Fendi over the course of five
years taught Nicolas how to push a brand
to its limits.2013
FENDI PARIS
A catastrophe delivered a big career break-
through for Curiosity. Before the 2011 Tōhoku
earthquake and tsunami, 95 per cent of the
studio’s work was in Japan. After the disaster
struck, all projects were brought to a halt.
Looking to his homeland, Nicolas made a few
contacts at LVMH, the conglomerate behind
some of the world’s best-known luxury goods.
Soon Nicolas was off to a meeting in Rome,
where Pietro Beccari not only announced
he’d be taking the reins as Fendi’s new CEO
but that – unbeknown to Nicolas – Curiosity
would be designing the brand’s new store. The
project led to a five-year-long partnership.
‘Everyone thinks big companies
are so corporate,’ says Nicolas, ‘but they’re
actually about one-to-one emotional connec-
tions. That’s what I discovered from working
with Beccari.’ Theirs was a no-compromise
relationship. ‘Anything he didn’t like, I’d
change – and vice versa. Luxury brands can
appear static and stubborn from the outside,
but I now know why they’re successful: they
actually work organically. We designers are
asked how far we can push their brand – and
they judge if it fits or not.’
Fendi taught Curiosity the value of
creating a bold icon: one element that forms
the visual core of a design. In Paris it was
the ‘spike wall’. Nicolas had witnessed such
needlelike shapes securing Fendi’s furs during
production and seen the brand’s bag-display
walls. ‘All my ideas came from inside the
brand; I just combined them in a specific way.Technology is boring, and craftsmanship can
be too. You have to find the emotional idea.’
Nicolas feels that establishing a
strong centrepiece is more important than
ever in today’s digitally orientated world.
When the doors to Fendi Paris opened,
crowds flocked to the spike wall for self-
ies, which appeared online within minutes.
‘Ten years ago things had to be photogenic;
now they need to be mediagenic. That’s an
interesting idea to work with.’ »67