Philippe Starck: from Venice to the new perfume. A conversation with the king of design

Venice, a late fall afternoon. We meet up with Philippe Starck at Quadri, the historic and famous café in piazza San Marco, today the Alajmo restaurant that the French designer restored for his Italian chef friends Massimiliano and Raffaele Alajmo.

The appointment is at 14,30; Starck arrives on the dot. He is with his wife, Jasmine, at whom he often glances during the interview, in a harmony of thought.

Born in 1949, the son of an industrial aeronautics engineer, Philippe Starck is unanimously considered the first true star of design, the one who, starting from the late 80s, has made his name resound like a brand, with products and ideas on everyone’s lips and part of the collective imagination, not only of everyone’s home. Just to name a few of his many instant classics: the Louis Ghost and La Marie chairs for Kartell, the Privé sofa for Cassina, the Katsuya restaurants all over the world, the Juicy Salif citrus squeezer for Alessi, the Bubble Club industrial living room, the Attila and Napoléon gnome side tables… his archive embraces more than 10,000 objects and projects and he never stops! A turmoil on all scales and typologies, from yachts, hotels, Ipanema sandals, watches, harbours, interior, architecture, Eurostar lounges, Taschen bookstores, private buildings, even his own beer brand, Starck Beer with Olt, and the very recent, STARCK PARIS perfumes “Peau de Lumière Magique” for her and “Peau de Nuit Infinie” for him to smart phones with Xiaomi he is always aiming bigger and bigger, like working on the next AXIOM space station.

Mr Starck is an unceasing creator and his creations resonate.

With Starck, there are no pat answers nor predictable responses. And it has been said that he doesn’t like to talk about design! Subversion is the name of the game. His thoughts fly faster than his words; his English, so French accented, is unique.

He is like a river in flood that overwhelms everything in its path twisting questions and scripts around. We have half an hour.

I am bringing you the greetings of Moritz Waldemeyer from London.

We shall do a lot of things together, we shall start now, but he doesn’t know it yet.

At the beginning he worked with you.

Yes, but I don’t remember what he did. I believe I found him when he was a student. He is a very nice person, and super smart.

I would like to ask about Venice, we are here, you live here all the time or also in Paris?

We are flying everywhere at the same time, that means I cannot tell you exactly, but yes we can say that: Half and half is good, but It’s not really Paris, now we live more in Portugal. It’s more half Venice and half Portugal.

Where in Portugal if I might ask…

A little harbour close to Lisbon, called Cascais.

Super nice! But as I know you are very fond of Venice and Gran Caffè and Quadri restaurant is just the latest project here...

I have lived in Venice for 45 years. I live in the island of Burano that means that I am not really Venetian but I am really Buranese. Venice is a miracle, it’s a living miracle in the centre of Europe. I consider Venice like the real, mental and geographic centre of Europe. Venice is the brain of Europe and I tried a little bit to support this when I created the logo for Venice a long time ago. And I continue to do everything I can to promote this idea of Venice as the brain of Europe. Venice is the best place to think, it's the best city to be updated in high technology because we can put the cable in the water. The history of creativity in Venice is incredible with the Arsenal, and the construction of boats, which was exactly the same thing as the Airbus factory today. Airbus can deliver one complete plane per day. At that time the Venetians delivered a boat in one day completely finished, also with slaves, with chickens, everything. It was incredibly intelligent, incredibly modern.

That’s why for me Venice is the city of intelligenza and when you live in the Laguna you discover what a mental space it is. Because Venice, first of all, it’s a mental space and the more you stay the more you become mental.

Regarding intelligence, somewhere you stated that intelligence is female, do you still agree on this?

I already said it a long time ago, may be more 30 years ago. Now I would love to redefine it, because now the official medicine says there are 22 different statements of sexual orientations so that’s why now man and woman mean absolutely nothing, of course they always meant absolutely nothing but now it’s official and it’s very good. I shall say it’s a feminine part of our humanity, which is our future, which means it can be a woman or a man with some femininity, which he or she is proud of and she / he knows how to use his feminine part. I think a man without a feminine part is not interesting, and even more, a man who does not work with his femininity has no future, because he is part of a civilisation, of an archaic obsolete civilisation where there was aggressiveness and strength was power. And now it’s intelligenza. Women theoretically have less (physical) strength, less aggressiveness but definitely women are more intelligent.

Going back to Venice and Caffè Quadri and the restaurant makeover… What was it like dealing with such a historic landmark from the late 1700s?

First of all, we have to speak about why I undertook this project. You can’t make a project without a love affair, and the love affair is between me, my wife and the Alajmo brothers. And Venice, of course but it’s first and foremost about people. The Alajmo brothers are living miracles. Max / Massimiliano is a poet, a light, he is like a white cloud, which is very serene, very quiet, kind, an incredible talent who lives in his own spirit in his own country made of beautiful and good things. And his brother, Raf / Raffaele, is the contrary. Max lives in the air while Raf lives on the ground, in the mud. Everyday, he mixes mud: the mud of everything, the mud of life, the mud of problems, the mud of food, etc. He is a poet of the mud and if Max is like a gas, like light, like a cloud or like a poem. Raf is like an animal, but with this incredible femininity.

Your work for them and Quadri, with the support of local workshops and artisans…

First, working in Venice is so special, because everything is frozen. Venice is Venice because of that. You cannot touch anything. That’s why when I start a project, I shall not try to change something but I shall try just to find what is art, what is the reason to live in this place, what is the legitimacy of it and in the end, you will find a jewel full of energy. And then you start to work from it to make this jewel be at its best.

This place was the palace of mystery so I have added more mystery, it was the palace of mental games, so I created more mental games, it was the palace of strange creations, so I added more strange creations, it was a palace of lions with wings, so I put a real lion with wings It was the palace of high water, Acqua Alta, so I showed the high water everywhere. The oxidization: instead of hiding it, I show it off. The top is shining and the bottom is oxidized. I just dig into Venice and the palace, and into the craziness and poetry of the Alajmo brothers just to make the Quadri how it has to be at the best possible level.

Just before you were talking about chemistry between you and them. But you have done so many things, objects and projects. Has working always been about good relationships?

If I don’t have good relationships, if I don’t like people, I don’t do it. To have beautiful babies “parents” / you have to be in love. You don’t make anything with people you don’t love. That’s why we have this love affair, since 10 years now, with deep pleasure when we are together, and we work without working. We make things that are very precise, very special, but finally in one hour of our theoretical work we work 10 minutes and we laugh for 50 minutes, because the real work is when we laugh and we drink wine.

It seems that there is always a kind of enjoyment and fun in your work and what you do.

I don’t save lives, I don’t build machines, and I am a creator who just tries to make a better life for his friends.

Not just for friends, Philippe! You reach such a vast audience, so I wouldn’t say just friends…

People like my creations because we are friends. We are on the same page. You can’t buy something from someone without loving the person. You buy it because you share the same values. We know we are special because people love us. People either hate us too much, or love us too much. It’s very passionate. And that’s why also I continue to work. Because it’s a passionate relationship.

You have created an uncountable number of objects…

And I work more and more, there are so many new things to do, so many new ideas, new needs. Everything changes so fast now, so radically there are needs that didn’t exist a few years ago and we have to answer these needs.

And your latest launch, two perfumes for her and for him.

My dream: to do something with a big effect but without materiality, like music. My regret is not to be a music composer. So I love the idea of a perfume, which is 99% immaterial. When a woman wears some perfume, she enters in a crystal ball. You put on some drops and right away it affects someone else.

And regarding materials, is plastic still one of your favourites?

Yes, it is. If it's well done, made by the right people with the right plastic from horrible underground oil it’s better than killing animals and trees. There is no question on that. I consume almost nothing, 10% of regular chairs. I still use it and after 30 years of work, I found the solution to do it, exactly with the design I want with the minimum use of fuel.

I was not making a criticism.

I have been involved in ecology since 55 years. There are only a few people in the world that can say that. A lot of people say: “We use ecological materials, we make machines to produce energy…” and even if a few people in design try to make a bit of effort like me, at the end it is nothing. We can invent and invent things, we can try to do our best but it will change and solve only about 5% of the problem, perhaps. I think the best ecological strategy is to first say to your friends, before buying something, think twice because perhaps you don’t need it. And immediately consumption drops 20%. If you buy something, make sure that the product has a very high longevity. Material longevity, technical longevity and cultural longevity, that is vital. There is absolutely no problem to buy a plastic chair if you keep it 60 years. The problem is if you keep it 2 years.

If you allow me, I would love to go more personal. I heard you have strange nights.

There is a malediction on me at night, which is a real mystery for us. At night I go to work, I visit places I have never visited, I meet people I have never met, I see new inventions that don’t exist yet in the world, I see the quality of air, the quality of light, perfumes which don’t exist. Every night I discover new countries, but in the morning I don’t remember anything, and even if do, I erase them because I don’t want to remember. I don’t know whether I have this creativity because of these dreams or whether I have these dreams because of this creativity. But the end it’s so strong and incredible, something very close to craziness that I say to myself that since my night life is much better than my day life, why don’t I consider my real life to be the one at night. I am asking myself how this could be, how I can know and see all that. So during the day, we can almost say that I am just resting before I go back to my real life.

So… your days?

My real work is a nap. Everyday I take a nap. I wake up at 6-7 AM with my wife, we go and work a lot, and we go to bed at noon, we close the curtains, we go naked, we read, we sleep and then later in the day we do exactly the same routine, we take a shower… So We have two days in one, the first day in the morning and because we do again everything, we take again breakfast, we have a second day. That’s why I can work so much and I can make so many things. In my life I live two days in one. Deep creative work is physically exhausting, because the brain works a lot.

Might I ask about the dot tattoos on your and Jasmine’s arm?

I have no memory, so usually for men to remember they are married they wear the ring, that’s why when they don’t want to remember about it, they take it off. But for me when I marry somebody it is for life. So that’s why I said, “We shouldn’t wear a ring but we should do a tattoo”. Every dot means a year of our marriage, 5 are missing because we didn’t have time. If one day I lose my brain, I am sure the lady will ask me “what is this?” and I will reply “Oh, I’m sorry I’m married”

Somewhere you said you didn’t have any secret dreams when you were a child. I don’t believe it!

It’s true. I was so depressed. I stopped being depressed only when I met my wife 12 years ago.

But you sound very fun!

I am a super dark person. I am polite, we live in the community so I have to be nice. All people with humor are always a bit desperate. I was so desperate when I was young, and I was so nowhere, with no future and no ideas about the future and I didn’t have time to think about it. I was doing nothing, I was not talking to anybody, I didn’t have friends, no furniture in my room, I was a very closed door, we can say that. And I had no dreams. When you are dying a bit every day you have no dreams. In the end, I decided to start to exist and I realized that the only thing I could do in my life is to create. And because I was so down I started to create non stop.

I was down, than I reached the surface when I was around 50 and now I am above the surface and I continue to work. I was super shy, I didn’t ever go to parties, and also now I am not a party boy. We have a huge house in Lisbon where we can receive 2000 people at the same time and we never invite anybody.

You are a biker, right? And I remember your collaboration with Aprilia.

I also drive a plane, I crash sometimes, I am a plane crasher. I did Aprilia at least 15 years ago. The owner of the company at that time, Ivano Beggio, wanted a cortege of that bike at his funeral in March 2018. It was a real honour for me. I love motorbikes.

But in Venice you can’t drive them.

Here we have a boat!