Since the early 1980s, Fuorisalone events and exhibitions during the Milan Design Week have grown grown from just a few happenings to an entire week’s worth of programming.
While the Design Week’s main showcase is still the furniture and furnishings event, Salone Internazionale del Mobile, Fuorisalone events are now covering many other segments including automotive, technology, art, fashion and food.
One of the intriguing pop-ups included in this year’s Fuorisalone was the four-day Cartier Precious Garage installation at Garage Sanremo on Via delle Fosse Adriatine.
Created for Cartier by Desi Santiago, the Puerto Rico-born visual and performance artist based in New York, Precious Garage was a fantastical mix of gold, mechanics and jewellery.
Everyday mechanical shapes and tools have long been Cartier inspiration and the garage references worked in this installation perfectly.
The pieces of jewellery on display were from the new Juste un Clou and Écrou de Cartier collections inspired by nuts and nails, but the visual centerpiece was the gold-painted 1978 Corvette C3 hovering over the precious pieces.
Santiago used elements of a garage – the car, car parts, tools – and slathered it all in gold creating a jewellery-like space that felt as luxurious as each of the Cartier pieces.
A luxe garage with a seriously splendid parts department, the inside of a timepiece, an art installation – Cartier Precious Garage evoked all of these. What it was NOT, is a boring, prissy showcase of jewellery. Tuija Seipell.
