Dolce & Gabbana and Smeg project – bespoke hand painted fridges

May

Dolce & Gabbana and Smeg project – bespoke hand painted fridges

Sometimes fashion meets design in unusual ways! This was one of this strangely balance and harmonious projects that was unveiled at Salone del Mobile 2016, between Dolce & Gabbana and Smeg. They collaborated on a bespoke collection of limited-edition hand painted fridges.

Since very early, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana payed tribute to their Italian heritage, specifically to Sicily, through their runway fashion weeks collection. This is a special homage! The refrigerators are embellished with traditional, provincial emblems, such as lemons, the trinacria flag, carts, medieval knights and battle scenes, and finished off with elaborate floral motifs.

Contributing artists include Salvatore Sapienza, who has been restoring and decorating Sicilian carts since he was a teenager, and today works from a fruit shop he took over from his grandfather.

Other artisans include mother-and-daughter duo Adriana Zambonelli and Tiziana Nicosia, whose creations from their artisan workshop in Catania have been displayed across the globe; as well as brothers Antonio and Giuseppe Bevilacqua; and artists Biagio Castilletti and Damiano Rotella, who have been working together for over a decade.

There’s very much a sense of kinship befitting of the family-run Smeg imbued in these one-off pieces, which stake a claim to be artworks in their own right.

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Up to 240 painstaking hours of work have been poured into each fridge, and each one features an individual and unique painting – with a price tag to match.