The poetry is in the material with -morfo

A mineral substance with extraordinary properties, silicon takes on unpredictable appearances and revolutionises the world of eyewear.

The encounter of VANNI’s creative eyewear design with master artist of silicon Alessandro Ciffo gives birth to a breath-taking collection of women’s sunglasses. Their maximalist aesthetic is defined by a unique detail originating not from a design but from a gesture, and for this inimitable and unrepeatable.

It is the simple and utilitarian silicon that transforms into an element of surprise, giving the glasses a spirit that springs from the imagination, and yet is tactile like a living thing. The -morfo glasses are warm to the touch, pleasantly alive, visibly daring. A poetry recited in shape and colour.

Ciffo finds the poetry of silicon in its versatility: starting from a serendipitous experiment at the end of the 90s, he enables the material to express its infinite possibilities without imposing his own meaning on it, allowing it to reach its full potential. The culmination of this technique is a collection of objects that dance with fluidity, their colours melting and blending, astonishingly glass-like in their semblance yet soft and silky.
From this process spring vases, lamps, plates and cups, and even wildly-patterned couches.

Today, the protagonist of Ciffo’s creativity finds a new stage on the rims of this women’s eyewear line realised exclusively in the artist’s atelier, in collaboration with the VANNI style center.

The silicon detail utilises a refined interlocking construction to adorn the lenses of this collection, titled -morfo because it contains a multitude of appearances, and therefore worlds: a substance that continually renews its shape and plays with colour.

The silicon rims and temple tips are each unique and unrepeatable, as each is handcrafted in Ciffo’s studio and joined with sophisticatedly gradated mirror lenses.

The -morfo cases evolve from an unprecedented neoprene design with original details in orange silicon, and are crafted by Colori Vivi, a socially conscious Turin-based fashion start-up that employs migrant women who are most vulnerable.

The women’s glasses from the -morfo collection are named Dafne, Gea, and Urania.

 

-morphology

Cristallo: it is not what it seems. Cold and solid in appearance, in reality it is silky and warm to the touch. The silicon of the rim unexpectedly interplays with the plasticity of the natural crystal and its polyhedric facets, in various transparent colours: pink, aqua green, blue, and turquoise.

 

Stalattite: a slow precipitation of coloured silicon drops shaped by the forces of physical laws. Every individual frame is unique in its shape, with filiform points that add an intriguing and unexpected fluidity.

 

In binary colour combinations: blue/copper, red/green, purple/green/copper, black/white, and red/bordeaux.

 

ALESSANDRO CIFFO

Alessandro Ciffo (Biella, Italy, 1968) is a master of working in silicon. Self-taught and completely independent in his process, his journey is based on the in-depth research of silicon, the only medium in which he works and the only medium capable of expressing his emotions. With an astounding technical mastery achieved through years of untiring experimentation and infinite patience, Ciffo creates artifacts that elude definition, at a crossroads between art and design.

In Ciffo the creative lives side by side with the workman, with the artist, with the designer and the producer: figures who in the contemporary world are generally separate. A modern alchemist, capable of transforming material into matter through pure ingenuity.

 

VANNI Eyewear

VANNI glasses were born in Turin 35 years ago to see the world. Entirely made in Italy, their manufacture is entrusted to the most skilled and highly specialized workforce in the land.

At home in Milan, Paris, New York, Tokyo, and Sydney, VANNI is on the cutting edge of eyewear design. Through the -morfo project, VANNI is setting out into new territory with materials that reveal the previously unexplored expressive and creative power of eyewear. At the heart of VANNI is not craftsmanship but rather industry in limited edition, exported in 40 countries around the world.