SECRéTAIRE is an artist and works using sculpture and graphics – including artists’ books – or by setting up more complex and structured projects in which many factors come into play (collections, the inexhaustible variables of exhibition design, the involvement of other artists) and which he approaches as a kind of filmmaker. In recent years this has also led him to open a museum in its own right  (Museo d’Inverno), which he still directs together with Eugenia Vanni and which, thanks to its extremely high level of programming, has now (painfully) established itself as the only museum in Siena dedicated to contemporary art.
Another passion of his is interior design, which he perceives and understands as a kind of artistic installation.
His design-related works (which he signs with the SECRéTAIRE– unofficial brand) are actually very few and are mostly made for his friends and associates. Approaching this subject with an artist’s eye and not being interested in the production aspect for the market, most of his projects remain in the initial prototype stage. For Dolci Trame, however, it was different.
The owners had seen some of his projects and invited him (after an initial structural intervention in the new headquarters, supervised by a Florentine architect) to suggest, unofficially, some changes to some furniture and a counter that had already been made and with which they were not satisfied. They liked the ideas proposed and after this first ‘repair’ intervention it was clear to everyone that the same stylistic approach was needed for the rest of the boutique. Obviously, this implied a sudden turnaround on the part of the owners and an unexpected change of approach, not only formal but also – and above all – conceptual. It meant accepting a ‘dangerous’ but extremely exciting challenge: a boutique designed by an artist.
After an initial period in which the owners expressed all the functional requirements they needed, it was decided to maintain the structural interventions already carried out by the first architect, including the plant engineering. All in all, they were fairly anonymous interventions that would have allowed a smooth integration with SECRéTAIRE new designs.
In reality, the very nature of the fund, which develops longitudinally as a single narrow barrel tunnel, did not allow great flights of fancy at the structural level, without considering that we are in a historic building and notified, the request for other permits for further architectural changes would have greatly lengthened the time SECRéTAIRE therefore designed all the furnishing elements that completed the store. The fitting rooms, the seats, the shop windows, the hangers, the shelves, the lamps and the counter, but above all he gave the shop a sort of personality. It tried to suggest a particular atmosphere – and consequently a way of using the space -, an attitude to be breathed by both customers and by us who work inside. SECRéTAIRE therefore designed all the furnishing elements that went to complete the boutique. The fitting rooms, the seats, the display windows, the hanging racks, the shelves, the lamps and the counter, but above all he gave the shop a sort of personality. He tried to suggest a particular atmosphere – and consequently a way of using the space -, an attitude to be breathed in by both customers and those of us who work inside. The materials used, as well as the color palette, are very limited: white, grey, gold (with the sole exception of the green stain of the large tree at the end of the shop).  This choice, which turned out to be fundamental, was wanted by SECRéTAIRE to characterise such a difficult environment in a precise, unitary and incisive way. At the same time, this choice made it possible to make the architecture “disappear” when it was filled with the clothes, shoes, bags and objects of the various brands that the shop represents and which were obviously intended to be the main players.bSo it is an intervention that aims to be very characterful but at the same time absent, when observed with different eyes and interests. The furniture, counter, seats and shelves are all made of white lacquered MDF. Designed as broken polyhedral volumes which, despite their irregularity, integrate along the perspective lines and support the structural volumes of the room and the large mirrored walls, grafting, extending, extruding or overlapping them to create a series of slippery, overlapping layers where, thanks also to the meticulous grouting of the lines joining the planes, the perception of the beginning of one and the end of the other is confused. The hangers are made of square tubular iron, turned into a lozenge and lacquered in grey. Grey is also the precious velvet used to make the tall dressing rooms and the upholstery of the seats, as well as the carpeting that covers some areas of the cement resin floor, once again describing and amplifying the geometric lines of the architecture as if they were shadows cast on the ground.
The boutique is littered with lamps made from old brass abat-jour bases from the 1960s and completed with specially made grey conical lampshade hats which, by only projecting light downwards and refracting onto the brass, create a warm atmosphere in contrast to the geometric rigidity of the rest of the shop, but at the same time, manage to amplify the chiaroscuro and therefore the various facets and changes of plane. The most artistic touch were the vertical polished brass poles, scattered seemingly at random throughout the shop, which seem to come out of the floor and then disappear into the vaulted ceiling. “This simple solution, says SECRéTAIRE, has several functions. It allows the real depth of the shop to be perceived right from the entrance, which would otherwise be ‘squashed’. A sort of optical telescope that accompanies the customer’s gaze from the entrance – or even from the external window – to the final part of the shop, where the large ficus tree stands out with its green foliage”. These poles describe a path which, like pins in an old pinball machine, impose a path which assists the fruition of the spaces. Like lap-dancing poles, they allow customers to involuntarily spin around them and show themselves in a sensual game that is perhaps the ultimate goal of haute couture.
Last but not least, these polished brass tubes are a kind of signature of the designer, as they are also present in many of his artistic works.
In addition to furnishing, SECRéTAIRE also proposed many initiatives, collaborations and events that would serve to make Dolci Trame not just a simple boutique but a point of reference that can accommodate different instances, trends and fashions in the broadest sense of the term.