Human relationships make the world go round.
This website is an archive of my work, which has centred around my fascination in the study of humans, their interactions, behaviour and what drives us. To analyse the past is the best way to understand the future, and to observe how through the centuries human have adapted, changed their power systems and ways to manipulate behaviour in order to create new realities. Throughout my life, I have dedicated myself to an education in design in form and function, and sometimes conversely corruption through aesthetics and luxury.
I was born with a global outlook, my father a diplomat, and my blood half Austrian and half Italian. Born in Bangkok, I studied at university in Vienna and began my professional work life in Milan, which has been my base since then, alongside my home in Tuscany, and my many travels to clients around the world. Milan has been an enlightening education. Always a centre for business and people that search for excellence, it is competitive and has its own steadfast system of operating. This has run alongside my understanding of Viennese culture which is much more playful, exemplified by the Viennese dialect, highly descriptive and vivid, which includes a myriad of words to describe mood, that simply don’t exist in other languages. Coupled with close friends in Asia and Latin America and the Arab world, and closer to home across Europe, I have been fortunate to be embedded in these distinct cultures to get a real sense of what counts. We live in a global world, yet still we have complex sensitivities, humour and values. Socially accepted norms that to outsiders just do not add up or worse offend. It is these cultural nuances that makes the world go round.
Forever consumed by art, art history and applied arts and the many fields it applies to beyond fashion and design, it is apparent to me that status symbols and possessions to define one’s position in society goes all the way back to clan systems. From the rules of the court and courtesans through to modern day marketing to manipulate people’s behaviour and economic spend, we have evolved, but are still ultimately driven by emotions.
I believe that Jesus Christ was the best marketeer, followed by Vivienne Westwood, who has herself through bold statements marked her position in art history, whilst becoming an icon with almost a religious following. Through emotions, poetry and aesthetics it is possible to seduce and beguile, without appearing to sell. We all need to love, laugh and believe in higher values.
Just as nano tourism is a reaction to cheap mass tourism, climate change and now pandemics, we seek to be social, responsible and engage in site specific and participatory experiences with a connection to the local community. We endeavour to understand one another, find our shared values and from this to learn.
It was in fact one of my father’s friends who advised me that diplomacy in its traditional role was in the past and of a bygone era. He encouraged me to develop new ways of real diplomacy out in the world. Bringing together people through spirit, pleasure or shared values, and whether in person or in the virtual world connects to our core needs and stimuli. This is an approach that I have always followed. Working with clients, who often become friends, to develop concepts and communication that once off in the market place becomes its own. Like any new movement or great birth, you believe in it, send it off with your blessing, and then support and react as it creates and sets on its journey.
