Interview with Studiopepe | The Arianna Lelli Mami and Chiara Di Pinto design agency

1) How was Studiopepe born? Tell us the path that led you to build this reality of yours. Was it a linear path or do you think there was a decisive turning point that led you to become who you are?
We met at university and then met again during the graduation trip to Mexico, on a semi-deserted beach. Sharing a part of the journey created a connection between us, and from there we started talking about what we would have liked to do ‘when we grow up’. And after less than a year we founded Studiopepe. Travel has remained a great source of inspiration for us.

2) How do you differ in your work? In what instead do you meet or do you agree most?
We have a very fluid relationship, we don’t have specific and defined roles as often happens in many duos.
We have a common vision and a very vast and shared substrate of imagination and references to draw from. Sometimes it is a language of few offspring but we understand each other immediately. Other times it is dialectic that may seem obvious but instead it is another way of conceiving the creative process.

3) What do you think makes your projects recognizable all over the world? What do you think is the strength that distinguishes Studiopepe from other interior design studios operating in the same sector?
Surely the strong storytelling that is the basis of our projects. In fact, we tend to give a name to every project … we need this to build a sort of personality … multifaceted but coherent.

4) Do you have one or more interior projects to which you are particularly attached? Are there some that you think best synthesize your taste and style?
We are very attached to our Manifesto projects that we do during the Salone del Mobile because they tell a lot about our creative and design process and frame what we created during that year and what we are working on for future years. Design, interior, set-up, sensory experience, performance… there are many media that compete to tell the story we have in mind.
And then the project for Arianna’s house… it’s not easy to be your own client but the result certainly reflects our Taste a lot.

5) Your interiors, as well as the manifesto projects that you present every year at Fuorisalone, are striking for their extreme compositional harmony and the study of colors. What influences you in creating and giving life to these suggestions?
The influences are multiple and layered .. each of us has our own, sometimes they are similar, sometimes it is precisely the crasis of opposite concepts that generates the unexpected!

6) What approach do you follow in product design? Form, color, function and materials; Is there a dominance for you between these factors in product design?
Formal and plastic research is very important to us.
We don’t feel like interior designers tout court, we love the project’s iconographic soul, sculptural for pieces that can adapt harmoniously and with great personality within even very different spaces.

7)A non-stop work of research and rediscovery also characterizes your latest creation, the floating Île Gallery. How do you manage your role as a design “Talent Scout” so effectively?
We don’t even know it well, certainly curiosity and love for beautiful things is a great engine. In our future projects there is certainly the idea of having our own space to host what we consider interesting on the international scene.

8) Have the new trends and the development of many communication channels changed the world of interior design in some way? Do you feel that your way of working has changed in recent times?
The world of design and beyond is changing very rapidly. Everything is faster sometimes at the expense of quality. For us it is important to ‘do well’ not only to ‘be there’ but because we have something to say that we think is valid and interesting.
Paradoxically, despite the fact that we use 3D renderings and graphic modeling in our projects, we are very oriented towards hand illustration, pencil sketching, collage, to illustrate a part of our projects. The mark left by the hand still has an essential value for us.