SALON: Lord Кастанья, please tell us about your plans for the post of art director of the company CECCOTTI.

- WITH CECCOTTI I'll have a hard time. Because everything they do is beautiful and out of fashion. They always went their own way - stylistically and constructively, some things have been produced for 15 years, but it would never occur to me to redo them or remove them from production! I will rather try to push CECCOTTI to evolve in a modern way, in the style of luxury.

S: And what do you personally mean by the term "luxury"?

“I consider time and space to be the greatest luxury.” Everyone in the world perceives these categories in different ways, but, in my opinion, truly luxurious things, like works of art, carry a certain amount of time. Unlike mass items, which seem to be deprived of a temporary component, this is why they look cheap, disposable. But luxury is not a demonstration of wealth and money, but a matter of personal satisfaction.

S: What, in your opinion, determines the development of tastes and styles?

- Personally, I prefer to work in a style that I conditionally call non-style - “non-style”. It is difficult to say how fashion will develop in general, but, I think, it will be a movement towards forms reflecting nature, and, as a result, a departure from demonstrative luxury. A few years ago, after the events of September 11, a coat of fur appeared on the catwalks inside, that is, the luxury remained, but it became closer to the body. It was akin to a physiological response to changes in the world. Therefore, the design will develop in the same vein as our life, because it is a kind of reconstruction of our desires and hopes.

S: Purely hypothetical, if you had to choose between functionality and beauty, what would you choose?

- I have a plasma panel at home and a whole bunch of different hi-fi equipment, and it all stands right on the floor. I need some kind of cabinet for them, but I haven’t yet found anything that I would like. The functionality itself is cold. My wife would be happy if I finally removed all these boxes and wires, but I prefer to leave everything as it is, than to look every day at a subject that does not please me. In general, we often acquire things simply because everyone has them. For example, buffets - what are they for? That's right, in order to keep the plates in them, which we do not use. So why start things that are needed only to hide in them what we do not need?

S: So you can be called a minimalist who pursues beauty?

- In general, yes. Space is a luxury, so it’s better to have few things in the house, but they should all be wonderful.