Mantero Archive at the Lake Como Design Festival 2025
September 14–21 / Villa del Grumello, Como
On the occasion of the seventh edition of the Lake Como Design Festival, Archivio Mantero presents UNANNO. A design narrative that reflects on the meaning of contemporary design.
The exhibition, hosted in Villa del Grumello from September 14 to 21, 2025, unfolds from the center of the room, where the oldest book in the archive is on display: a volume of printed fabrics from 1820. Around this core, a narrative project takes shape, interweaving a photographic sequence of shots that recount the first year of the project and a soundtrack, offering an immersive experience on the theme of intention and method.
Accompanying the installation is the fanzine UNANNO, a publication that brings together images, voices, and reflections to recount the stages of a creative process that has its roots in memory and opens up to the present.
The book will be on sale at the bookshop during the festival. The Mantero Archive project was created within Mantero Seta, a historic textile company based in Como and founded in 1902. While Mantero is world-renowned for its fabrics and luxury fashion accessories, the Mantero Archive preserves and promotes its visual, technical, and cultural heritage. Since 2024, it has existed as a brand in its own right, open to contemporary influences.
UNANNO. A design story.
Progettare significa prendere posizione. Distinguere tra gesto e intenzione, tra necessità e improvvisazione. Ogni atto creativo nasce da una spinta individuale ma si misura con un contesto, una storia, delle regole. In un’epoca in cui tutto può sembrare design, si riafferma il valore del processo: la progettazione non è istinto, ma metodo; non è stile, ma struttura, radici e consapevolezza. Il nostro lavoro costruisce le sue basi su un archivio vivo, attraversato ogni giorno, un luogo che richiede tempo e restituisce senso. La cultura dell’estetica, coltivata neltempo, è il fondamento di una credibilità che sostiene ogni cosa.
The Mantero textile archive contains over 80,000 accessories, 100,000 printed and jacquard fabrics, 10,000 books, 30,000 hand drawings, as well as test papers, photographs, printing tools, original kimonos, and materials from the archives of textile companies of the past, from all over the world. A collection that documents two centuries of visual culture and craftsmanship.
In 2024, Archivio Mantero became an independent branding project, opening up dialogue with the world of art, contemporary design, and experimentation. Because the archive is not a point of arrival, but a creative platform from which to imagine new stories.
UNANNO celebrates the first year of Archivio Mantero, founded in 1902.
