#MCCOTInterview {51}
Elena Pelosi, the Italian designer, creative director and artist who celebrates slowness and natural beauty
Creativity is a special gift to cherish and nurture all your life long. Creative people and artists own the power to enhance and illuminate the ordinary. They are indeed able to bring positive and creative vibes, beauty and hope into this world. Even in the darkest times that humanity has to go through. They always find a way to go forward and surprise us. Italian slow designer, creative director and talented and renowned versatile female artist Elena Pelosi is one of them. Designing, experimenting with materials, creating and handcrafting with grace, poetry and gentleness, unique artworks has been natural to her since she was a child. Art has always been her true path. The perfect opportunity for her to express her deepest feelings and celebrate her personal connection to Mother Earth. Elena has become a passionate and intuitive skilled craftswoman and ceramist, proud co-founder of 'Made in Fornace' and Un:rawn collective Italy. A creative mind, always seeking for beauty and harmony happily not committed to production, but to presence, research, silence, and to the necessity of less. Always looking for a new creative challenge that pushes her limits, the artist is currently collaborating with her close friend Francesca Di Palma, Milan-based beauty expert, entrepreneur and founder of young and promising Italian premium, eco-conscious, unconventional and genderless skincare brand 1981 Lab on an exciting new project. One that perfectly fuses their beloved universes: Art, Design, Home decor, beauty and fragrances. An upcoming one-of-a-kind arty and perfumed collection, born organically from the desire of two bold women, who admire and support each other, to join their expertise, innovate and create something really special and close to their hearts. We sincerely can not wait for these precious treasures to be soon revealed. Stay tuned.
By Hélène Battaglia
Who are you?
I am Elena Pelosi. An artist, a designer, a creative director. My practice is rooted in Venice and Milan, but it moves freely—between ceramics, collectible objects, installations and interiors—always searching for a dialogue between matter, memory and transformation. After more than a decade as Creative Director at Matteo Thun & Partners, I chose to found my own studio, where experimentation and poetry could coexist without compromise.
Have Art and creativity always played a big part in your life?
Art was never a choice—it was survival. Since childhood, creativity has been my way of making sense of the world. I built houses everywhere and with everything—under tables, with Lego, inside ditches or on top of trees. I modified objects, conducted chemistry experiments, created worlds out of scraps. And yes, I collected stones, fossils, fragments picked up anywhere I went. My first art competition was in elementary school—it felt natural, as if I had always belonged there. That silent dialogue with materials shaped my identity long before I knew it would become my practice.
When exactly did you start creating, designing and crafting?
My hands were always restless. But the real beginning came when I left the speed of corporate design and chose the slowness of clay. From there, every piece became both an experiment and a confession.
Are you a self-taught artist or a trained one?
I studied Art, Cultural Heritage, Restoration and Architecture, and explored the languages of graphic design and photography. I have always liked studying very different disciplines—they complete my formation and feed my curiosity. But my deepest training comes from materials themselves: clay, stone, fragility. The kiln—slow, unpredictable, unforgiving—is still my strictest teacher.
What do you absolutely enjoy in the whole creative process?
The accident. The moment when matter resists: clay collapsing, stone refusing. In that disobedience lies the truth of creation—when the work stops belonging to me and starts speaking for itself.
What inspires you?
Ruins that whisper.
Nature that cannot be possessed. Fragments of literature and philosophy. The Japanese idea of impermanence, and the Mediterranean weight of memory. I am obsessed with volcanoes, earth, energy—elements that leave traces across all cultures. I look for what resonates universally, beyond trends, beyond fashion, into something timeless.
As a Slow designer and artist how important is it to you that people understand the necessity of approaching life with slowness?
Slowness is subversive.
In a world obsessed with speed, to slow down is to resist. It means respecting the time of matter, of people, of transformation. Without slowness, nothing has depth.
But slowness does not mean inertia. My work also thrives on digital speed, on international collaborations, on the urgency of contemporary dialogues. I believe in moving between tempos—slow when it comes to matter, fast when it comes to ideas.
Which is your purpose in life, as an artist and a creative but also as a human being?
To reveal beauty in fragility.
To regenerate what is obsolete.
To leave not objects, but traces of attention.
And to do so with grace and gentleness—to let people discover it through touch, never too loud, never too blatant.
Recently you decided to focus your creativity on your deep passion for ceramics and co-founded with Italian Fashion editor Luca Lanzoni, 'Made in Fornace'. Could you tell us more about this new journey of yours?
Made in Fornace is a project, a concept, a brand that takes form in an atelier inside the historic Fornace Curti. It celebrates the excellence of Italian craftsmanship while opening it to contemporary narratives. With Luca Lanzoni we shape collectible pieces, but also experiences—rituals around fire, conversations, and dinners. It is a space where community is forged as much as clay.
You also are involved as co-founder in Un:raw collective Italy. What is this other project of yours about?
Three women, three geographies—Italy (Milan and Rome) and Dubai. Together with Alessandra Pasqua (Wanderart) and Carolina Samper (CCGK Design), we created Un:raw Collective: raw materials meeting female vision. Sustainability, craft, innovation. Our debut in Riyadh staged Italian heritage against Saudi futurism, turning matter into cultural dialogue.
On the occasion of the Chinese year of snake, Maison Bulgari asked you the privilege to create on commision a bespoke piece of your ceramic art piece. How did this gold opportunity come up?
The initiative was born in Italy and extended on a global scale, involving seven international editions of Harper’s Bazaar: Japan, Korea, France, India, Middle East, United States and Italy. At the heart of the project was a special gatefold revealing a collector’s insert: a celebration of the union between art and fine jewelry, centered on “AI”—not Artificial Intelligence, but Artisan Intelligence.
I created the ceramic backdrops: undulating, tactile landscapes, nuanced with different clays, that staged Bulgari’s serpent jewels. Their permanence against my impermanence. Their preciousness against my fragility.
In which circumstances did you meet Francesca Di Palma, founder of genderless premium and niche skincare brand 1981 Lab and a close friend of yours?
We met in Milan, in Isola, both seeking honesty in creation. The encounter felt inevitable, almost scripted.
What do you think you have in common?
Purity. Refusal. Boldness. The courage to create care as a radical gesture.
What is your personal point of view regarding the one-of-a- kind private and professional journey of hers?
It is uncompromising, deeply personal, yet universal. Integrity disguised as elegance.
Is it true that you are planning together an upcoming amazing creative partnership that will perfectly melt your two universes?
Yes. With Francesca, we are shaping a project where fragrance becomes identity—personal, architectural, spatial. Home is the new fashion. Today the home speaks louder than handbags. We are weaving scents that inhabit both the body and the room, blurring intimacy and representation. She creates the perfumes, while I craft the box—handmade, ceramic, tactile. Two parts, inseparable, in symbiosis.
How important is it for you to support and empower other women?
It is not optional. And not only women—it is about human beings. To empower is to shift paradigms, to open spaces for vulnerability, to create ecosystems of solidarity instead of competition.
In this world of heavies where caos, violence and uncertainty reign, which are your happy and safe places?
Art, first of all: an installation by Olafur Eliasson, a photo by Francois Halard, a still life by Morandi, a nuance by Rothko. And in my daily life: Clay between my fingers. The intimacy of trusted communities. A hug. A smile. The familiar scent of known places but at the same time, also the excitement of a new place to discover. Losing myself in meditation while brushing my teeth at night. The morning sun, irradiating the wall of my home, reminding me that light gives me energy.
A special message in the bottle to the world and to our community...
Life should slow down to find its magic again.
All the pictures are Courtesy of Mrs. Elena Pelosi & 1981 Lab. All rights reserved.
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