The Underground

Because moving underground is a unique experience: when we enter the underground network, we access a particular universe, with codes completely foreign to those of the surface, since we lack clear sensory references when underground. Only darkness awaits behind the window! Put it to the test: Keep your gaze down on the tiles and take a few steps – you’ve completely lost your way! It is easy to get confused, disorientated, and lost not only during your commute … but sometimes even standing on the platform!
And this is where a whole magic spectrum of colours, symbols, pictograms and signs, designed to guide us through the darkness that fascinates us since childhood, comes into play. From the simple graphical media, capable of simplifying the most complex messages, to the intuitive and universal use of colour (neutral for large surfaces and lively for signalling), all the way to the cartographic skill of synthesising complex routes in a few lines, the studied furniture (from the handrails to the armrests) and the exceptional architecture of some stations, turned into authentic palaces in some cases and into artistic settings and film sets in others. All these aspects are as genuine expressions of a city as the streets, buildings and museums that extend over its surface.

Because the underground represents much more than a means of transportation; much more than an efficient and somewhat democratic way of getting around crowds and moving with hardly any setbacks between city spots. It is an icon, a cultural manifestation without which we could hardly understand our societies.

But that’s not all. The lines that we have travelled make up a sentimental cartography of sorts, an emotional itinerary that connects us with our past: the stop where our best friend or teen love lived; the station were our hectic school or university commute started, or where we rushed towards our first job or an encounter with the love of our life. The underground is part of our landscape, an element that permeates and shapes our lives.

All this we have striven to convey with the new collection of Maxi earrings and necklaces that we present below.
Doors are closing…. 3, 2, 1… All aboard!