Made of straw, wood, or better yet, bricks.
In childhood, home means protection—from the weather, strangers, and anything that could threaten the well-being of its inhabitants. As adults, the house remains a trusted shell, a place where one feels content without the need to seek solace elsewhere, surrounded by personal objects and cherished memories.

The home is a poetic place, where care is evident in the cushion, the plant, and the small feline wandering silently among surfaces of every size, material, and shape. These horizontal and vertical surfaces offer infinite sensory perceptions. Hence, it is also an aesthetic place, from the Greek αἴσθησις (aísthesis), “to perceive through the senses.”

Rugs, furnishings, paintings, family memories, and travel recollections define a temple where daily private rituals occur.

Every house finds its rhythm with the passage of time, a time marked by the presence of what we introduce, akin to the pages of a novel or the growth rings of a tree trunk.

From Komorebi to Mottainai: Embracing Nature’s Radiance

In the richness of the Japanese language, there exists a treasure trove of words that encapsulate intricate concepts and the beauty of natural phenomena with remarkable brevity.

Komorebi, as unveiled by Wim Wenders at the conclusion of his film, captures the ethereal shimmer cast by sunlight filtering through swaying leaves – a fleeting glow frozen in a singular, precise moment.

Hana-arashi, as disclosed by Nendo, describes the mesmerizing spectacle when cherry blossom petals detach and dance through the air – a transient beauty more captivating than the blossoms themselves, lasting mere moments.

The Unpredictable Elegance of Petals

The Harmony between Oki and Paola

Over two decades have passed since we embarked on a pioneering journey in the production of contemporary outdoor textiles, forever transforming their essence, scale, typology, and colour with a thin, impalpable thread – one suitable for twisting, coupling, shaping, and flattening into fabrics and cords.

The present and future of our company began with the unprecedented intuition, against the tide at the time, that such a flexible and potentially infinite raw material – akin to a thought relentlessly intertwining images, inspirations, and new connections – could transcend the conventional and establish the idea of a home without boundaries between indoor and outdoor.

However, we were not satisfied. We improved its performance, enhanced its qualities, and uncovered its aesthetic potential. Thus, a synthetic material, previously trapped in technology that rendered it rigid and soulless, superficially essential yet a source of ecological issues, became a valuable, sustainable material, functional for designing long-lasting and durable products, meeting the present requirements of the circular economy.

Over the years, that thread transformed into cords of various dimensions and forms, flexible enough to be woven, and into intricate, high-performance textile structures. It also manifested as soft knitted fabrics, reminiscent of classic craftsmanship like rib or plain stitch – a modern take on traditional handmade with a familiar, timeless essence. Additionally, it gave rise to dozens of unprecedented outdoor fabrics in exclusive colours, plush, inviting, and nearly indistinguishable from indoor fabrics, yet equipped with all the necessary qualities for outdoor use.

Per filo e per segno: the title binds the protagonist of our narrative to the meticulousness, care, and precision with which it is worked by the skilled hands of our staff, following the invisible threads of fantasy with their minds. This same attention is devoted every day to our work, to inventing new solutions, and to facing new challenges.

The enduring, contagious enthusiasm, the same as twenty years ago, has defined our identity. Paola Lenti herself guides us on this journey, unravelling and reweaving the thread of our history once again: a delicate yet resilient thread, leaving an indelible mark.

Abonos™ is a wood with a unique destiny. Primarily sourced from rivers in the Balkan region, it has often faced substantial floods that covered fallen tree trunks with soil, sand, and gravel – dragged and then submerged by the force of water. The elements have created ideal conditions for these trunks of various essences – oak, beech, poplar, ash, elm – to be preserved for millennia, reaching us without losing any of their properties.

For such a singular and precious wood, kindly preserved by the hand of nature, a similarly unique extraction process guided by a profound respect for the environment was developed. The task of bringing Abonos™ back to light and revealing its characteristic veins is entrusted to humans who immerse themselves in watercourses to free it from the weight of sediment. The trunks are secured with ropes tied to oxygen-inflated balloons, gently carrying them to the surface – a “technical” procedure imbued with a nuance of enchanted poetry.

Extraordinary materials like Abonos™, capable of meeting the demands of refined and exclusive design while being modernly eco-sustainable – preventing the unnecessary felling of trees – and simultaneously “telling” an ancient story, remind us that nature, if we pause to listen, is always capable of surprising us. On their surfaces, time has left a deep imprint, revealing a rediscovered beauty, innate and irreplicable, a testimony to its uniqueness. Today, the responsibility lies with all of us to collect its legacy and keep its memory alive.

On the hills of Como, where the city offers a view of the lake from above, there is a social tailoring workshop where accessories are sewn – bags, backpacks, but also dresses, trousers, and blazers – and stories and relationships of people who came from afar, fleeing poverty and war, are sewn up. “Torn” stories that need care, attention, listening: in need, in fact, to be re-sewn.

CouLture Migrante – this is the name of the tailoring atelier – does it with needle and thread, with machines running fast on offcuts and remnants to give shape to accessories entirely crafted by hand, unique because different from one another. And meanwhile, it reconstructs broken identities and restores their dignity through work.

Some of these stories intertwined with Paola Lenti company’s that, since its inception, has set itself the goal of combining business and ethics and to pursue a virtuous model that would enhance quality but even before people. A model that would preserve the environment, reduce waste, and give value to what others would discard.

This vision has a lot in common with that of the social atelier in Como, established in 2019 with the aim of promoting qualified vocational training for people at risk of social exclusion, such as migrants, and accompanying them on a path preparatory to professional integration, teaching them to produce high-quality tailoring products from recycled fabrics from the local chain of Como. Here is the common thread connecting the two realities: a thread that sews and gives new life to fabrics and stories.

The collaboration with CouLture Migrante started in 2022 when Paola Lenti proposed to Fernando and Humberto Campana – the Brazilian designers famous for their creations crafted with poor or waste materials – to conceive together a collection that would exclusively use the processing remnants of the company. The desire was to give life to a project based on sustainability and respect for the environment but also ethics, inclusion, and, not last, social responsibility. During the design phases, the idea arose to entrust the crafting of the textile components of the collection – named Metamorfosi – to people in situations of marginality but with experience in sewing and tailoring. Hence, Paola Lenti looked for a local craftsmanship reality that would commit to the same values shared with the designers and with which to “weave” an unprecedented alliance. And the thread led to Como.

Victoria and Saly Samba, hailing from Ghana and Senegal respectively, have been warmly embraced by the company. Guided by skilled tailors and artisans nurtured in the workshops of Meda, they embarked on a six-month training journey, aspiring to achieve professional independence. During that period, they acquainted themselves with the intricacies of fabrics, yarns, and cords, unveiling their unforeseen possibilities. Through a simple crochet technique, the core of a cord, when opened up and “ruffled,” transforms into a textile seaweed, imparting a unique character to the seating series envisioned by the Campana Brothers. A collection that also bears the imprint of diverse cultures, vibrant and overflowing with colours.

Today, the collaboration with CouLture Migrante is enhanced by further meaning. Paola Lenti has asked the atelier to produce the “Backpack CM” – the flagship product of the atelier’s accessories collection – exclusively using the materials of the company. Fabrics with different colours, weight, and thickness, originally aimed to upholster outdoor and indoor furnishings, have been transformed this way into unique accessories, not only because they are different from one another. Also, in this case, the “raw material” consists of the remnants of previous processing, while the hands that shape the backpacks are those of the people that CouLture Migrante has welcomed, trained, and then employed in their own atelier.

The first backpacks tailored by CouLture Migrante will be gifted to architects, designers, and journalists of the sector on the occasion of an event that will take place in the flagship store Paola Lenti in Miami during the next edition of Art Basel Miami. Saly Samba and Victoria are giving the finishing touches to the pieces departing for Florida, while Chieck – called Zé – from Gambia, employed by CouLture Migrante and now a true master in the tailoring art, makes the remnants slide quickly under the needle of the sewing machine, to a rhythm that resonates like music. Actually today, also life stories are being re-sewn: his own, Saly Samba’s, employed part-time at Paola Lenti, and Victoria’s, that will soon be employed in the tailoring department of a silk factory in Como. It is another circle that closes; or rather, it opens to generate shared value.

Paola Lenti was looking for a place to put down roots. A place integrated into the urban fabric of Milan, open to the city, and at the same time surrounded by green-ery. A venue to be purposefully designed for those who pass through the door to grasp everywhere the beauty of a plant, a flower, a tree, and thus nature, on which Paola Lenti has always drawn to envision her products.

A place that could not only become a permanent reference point during the Milano Design Week, but also maintain a constant dialogue with a diverse public and transmit an entire vision that goes beyond the usual retail concept to incorporate art and hospitality, food culture, and landscape design. A venue capable of telling a story that has a horizon that extends beyond that of a typical flagship store.

The new venue is located a former industrial estate surrounded by gardens in an area, which is undergoing a major redevelopment but far from the canonical routes of design.

The entire project has been designed to have as little environmental impact as possible, in keeping with the company’s concept, which has made sustainability one of its cornerstones. For the outside walls, neutral materials and tones were chosen to express the idea of harmony that underpins Paola Lenti’s creative choices and harmonise with the distinctive colours of the surrounding buildings.

I want the new location to be a lively place where people can feel good, – Paola Lenti explains –. A positive oasis for Milan as well».

Be responsible. Do not waste. Reuse. Find a way to give new life to thousands of offcuts, fabric and cord remnants, selvages, processing leftovers. A multicolored wealth of yarns and materials that are still performing – still alive – normally destined for landfills. What to do with it? Paola Lenti began to ask herself the question a few years ago, while pondering over the profound meaning of sustainability, a term now overused. How can we be sustainable, this was the exact question, when every year we produce more than 10 tons of leftovers, the disposal of which requires energy, people, machinery? Furthermore, why define them as waste or treat them as such, when they could turn into something unexpected?

Following the thread of this thought, Paola Lenti metaphorically began to fill drawers: in practice, dozens of boxes of different materials meticulously catalogued by color, type of fabric, size. A memory archive, a piece of company history.

In order for that thought to take shape, however, a new sign was needed, capable of revealing the essence of the material by changing – somehow shaking up – its original appearance. Brazilian brothers Fernando and Humberto Campana, renowned all over the world for their iconic pieces produced with waste materials, could have been the ideal partners.
Different in style – nonconformists, out-of-the-box -, but at the same time close to Paola Lenti for the philosophy that has guided their design career: the urgency of identifying a way of producing that combines ethics and aesthetics, the importance of creating from existing materials. Furthermore, the common sensibility for colour, more instinctive in the case of Campana, the result of a long chromatic research for Paola Lenti. Finally – no less pivotal – a shared vision of social responsibility: the awareness that there can be no ethics without inclusion and that, therefore, it is necessary to look for talents even among disadvantaged people; give them the deserved value, make them flourish. So that talent is not wasted either.

Paola Lenti sent to Brazil boxes full of textile remnants to explain to the brothers Campana the potentialities of this project. The answer: “This is a treasure”. A series of remote meetings led to the partnership. Humberto Campana designed shapes and volumes of the first prototypes; Paola Lenti shared her knowledge of the materials and her innate sense of colour, the brand hallmark. A team of artisans in the Meda factory got to work to bring the two thoughts together.

Test after test, matter regenerated and acquired a new form. Rope, Paola Lenti first high tech yarn for the outdoors, revealed the versatility of polypropylene, the material, of which it is composed. Naturally opening up, Rope cords have brought to life “flowers”, as soft as puffs in infinite shades, and expanses of “seaweeds”, silky to the touch, with which seats have been covered, inviting you to rest and play. With other fabric remnants, a rug has been designed with a patchwork effect; with still others the soft tubulars, similar to tentacles, which serve as backrests. The products finished, Humberto Campana commented: