Italian Design Embraces Nautical as Sector Outperforms
GENOA, Italy — Beginners’ luck. Milanese architect studio Palomba Serafini had designed everything from home collections for Versace Home and Fendi Casa to lighting for Foscarini, and envisaged hotels and homes of the future, but never a yacht.
Not until this year, at least.
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The husband-and-wife duo Roberto Palomba and Ludovica Serafini tested the waters this yacht-show season with a promising collaboration with Permare, an Italian shipyard founded in Sanremo in 1973. Together they unfurled the latest Amer Yacht F100 Glass Cabin, which, much to the design studio’s surprise, won them the World Yacht Trophies 2023 Semi-Custom award at the Cannes Yachting Festival.
“This was a first, and it came about quite spontaneously during a conversation between friends,” Palomba said, shrugging his shoulders, sitting on a plush Talenti couch situated on the deck of the first boat he has ever designed.
Inside, the reflective black surfaces and the teak detailing are inviting, as are the plush white carpets, the B&B furnishings and even the fruity, floral scented air freshener. Upstairs the outdoor space includes an intimate open-air lounge and dining area, also furnished by Talenti. “It is a sophisticated and comfortable environment that creates the impression of seamlessly extending the onboard ambiance to the beauty of the sea view,” the firm said.
Palomba Serafini is just one of many companies tapping into a trend fueling the yachting world’s performance on a global scale. From the displaced oligarchs living on floating palaces to the techies setting sail on Bauhaus-inspired lofts — individuals across the board are spending more and more time away from land, industry leaders say.
In an interview with WWD, Salone del Mobile president Maria Porro reflected on this past yachting season and the role of design firms in its ongoing success.
“The combination of furnishings with boating is becoming ever closer, because yachts are now being built like domestic spaces, homes personalized by architects and designers. In addition, there is a strong link to the outdoor sector where innovative materials that protect against atmospheric agents, UV rays and corrosive marine environments are being used,” said Porro, who is also president of the Genoa Boat Show Design Innovation Award jury.
She said it wouldn’t be the first time the nautical world made history with the design world, pointing out that visionaries like Italian designer Gio Ponti once developed furnishings and interiors for the ill-fated Andrea Doria transatlantic vessel, and visionaries of today like architect Renzo Piano designed the Crown Princess cruise ship, which was built by the Italian company Fincantieri in 1990.
More recently, Sanlorenzo, one of Italy’s most prominent luxury made-to-measure yacht-makers, tapped Patricia Urquiola in 2019 to design their SD96 model. RH, formerly Restoration Hardware, unveiled RH Three in 2022, an expedition yacht available for charter in the Mediterranean during the summer and the Bahamas in the winter. Enhanced with a homey feel, RH Three’s many design elements include cashmere bedding and an indoor dining space punctuated with deck chairs by Paola Lenti and Vincent Van Duysen.
The financial incentive for the design industry to increase its efforts is hard to ignore. Revenues generated by Italy’s nautical sector surged 20 percent in 2022 to 7.33 billion euros, according to the nation’s Marine Industry Association. By comparison and according to the French Nautical Industries Federation (FIN) France’s boating sector registered 4.95 billion euros in sales in the nautical industry and services between 2021 and 2022, the last fiscal year reported.
To understand Italy’s shipbuilding prowess, one would probably have to go back to the fifth to 10th centuries before Christ — somewhere between the Lombard invasion of Italy in 568 and the 934 sack by a Fatimid Caliphate’s fleet, when the Genovese were hard-pressed to build ships that were fit to withstand merciless attacks.
Fast forward to 2023 — Italy is once again under duress, this time mired in rising interest rates, high inflation and stagnant, teetering on negative economic growth. Presiding over the Genoa International Boat Show, which closed Sept. 26, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed her confidence in the nation’s shipbuilders as a key driver for the economy, as she toured Sanlorenzo’s glistening fleet.
“The Italian government needs to be thankful to this sector. They [shipbuilders] are able to tell a story, produce, demonstrate the Italian excellence as this sector has for many years, producing numerous jobs for the workforce,” Meloni enthused, noting that her right-wing government is committed to the strategic effort to restore Italy’s role as a maritime protagonist. Today, Italian shipyards account for 50 percent of all world orders of super yachts, the Marine Industry Association stated.
The yachting sector currently employs 28,660 people in Italy, up 8.8 percent year-over-year.
The weight of the yachting industry’s contribution to Italy’s gross domestic product rose 2.9 percent in 2021 to 3.23 percent in 2022, and has been on a steady uptick since 2013, rising sharply in the last two years, the association added.
In a move that further united the design and yachting worlds, Porro was appointed chair of a jury for Genoa’s International Boat Show’s Design Innovation Award earlier this year. Reflecting on her recent appointment and looking ahead to the economic opportunities for design firms worldwide, she noted the synergies are endless, especially in terms of sustainability.
“The experience made me understand the synergies between the furnishing and the nautical sectors…not only innovation, materials, finishes but also flexible solutions, customized designs, state-of-the-art production, safety and respect for the environment. We can work together making them even more sustainable and resilient,” she said.
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