The Shell

Prototype | 2021 | 25 x 18 x 18 cm | Limoges porcelain, paper porcelain.
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On display at HYSTERIA, Alpha District, Fuorisalone 2021.
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Sex Toys: an Italian woman out of three uses them. But where does she keep them?
An object that, although precious to women, is difficult to be seen in their homes because the sphere of autoeroticism, as intimate as it is common, is still experienced as a taboo and the object of pleasure is often destined to be closed in a drawer, invisible.
Why, instead, not include it in the daily domestic scenario, giving it the space it deserves?
The idea is to celebrate but, at the same time, to hide the object of pleasure by creating a special container for a contemporary petineuse, a place where to keep the woman’s secrets and needs.
Perfect synthesis between techniques processing, material properties and design focus, The Shell is born from a thin slab of Limoges porcelain worked to accommodate and preserve the object of pleasure, intimate and personal.
Fold after fold, the porcelain closes around the sinuous volume of Soraya, in a structural and symbolic spiral: an ancient emblem of fertility and femininity - The Shell - is fragile but protects, it shows itself but guards its content.
The Shell is mysterious, dual. It attracts for its whiteness and sinuous body and repels, for its jagged and prickly paper-porcelain ribs. Its smooth and thin profile seduces the gaze of strangers who observe it and would like to touch it but, at the same time, its fragility induces that curious diffidence that one feels in front of certain ancient fossils.
Only those who possess familiarity and confidence know how to approach to The Shell. And, therefore, to Soraya.
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The Shell results from a biancodichina + Valentina Cerra and Chiara Corbani collaboration.
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Ph Alessandro Saletta