Pier Luigi Colli (Turin, Italy 1895-1968)
The Italian Hand-Made Embroidery Manufacturing company (MIRAM) was established in 1850 by Pier Luigi's father, Pietro Colli.The firm specialized in Gobelin fabrics. His daughter Teresa traveled between Italy and Paris to discover the latest trends in fabrics and embroidery, while her younger brother, Pier Luigi Colli, the star of this story, joined the company in 1921. Distinguishing himself for his enterprising personality and willing to continue his father's profession, Pier Luigi was known to his contemporaries as "the artist interior designer", and had no doubts about his future: he moved temporarily to Paris, where he attended L'Ecole des Beaux Arts Décoratives and returned to Turin in 1921 to lead the Colli family firm.
In 1902, The Colli firm (MIRAM) merged with Martinotti, founded in 1831 by Giuseppe Martinotti and which supplied fine furnishings for the Savoy court, pieces which were characterized by a typically 19th century eclectic style, generally made of exotic woods featuring ivory and tortoiseshell inlays. Martinotti represented the top of international design, having even traveled to the States to participate in the 1875 Philadelphia exhibition. The year the two firms merged in 1902, their native city Turin hosted the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art, and thereafter became the cradle of the spread of the Liberty style in Italy. In the exhibition, Martinotti exhibited an elegant interior, in which all the textile parts, from the curtains to the seat upholstery, was made by Colli. It was in 1926 that Colli (MIRAM) finally acquired Martinotti, and founded a laboratory where complete pieces of furniture were created and tailor-made for the customer, from the structure to its upholstery.
Pier Luigi Colli, having lived in Paris, was highly influenced by the great French cabinet maker Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann (Paris, 1879 - 1933). Thanks to Paris, Pier Luigi intertwined contacts with the international beau monde, and started to import Lalique glass from France, while the Colli's clientele expanded and special commissions arrived, such as the creation of the Royal Train of the Savoy family made with Fiat, or the lecture hall in the University of Turin. Colli employed important creative partnership with the greatest designers of the Italian post-war era, from Gio Ponti, who relied on the brand for his Richard Ginori project in Rome, up to Carlo Mollino, who created with Colli, the handrails of the RAI (national TV) auditorium and the windows of the Teatro Regio in Turin; also in Turin, the Morbelli architects collaborated with Colli for the furnishings of the RAI skyscraper, and the architects Gabetti Isola for the interiors of the Stock Exchange in Turin.
The Colli firm succeeded through numerous decades, its common denominator was the meticulous carving of wood, elegantly decorated with subtle geometric carvings that stand out on the armrests and legs of tables and chairs, or on the doors of the sideboards. Colli was famous for his particular capability of working iron and gilded metal, employing hammered techniques with fine small decorative details along all the iron surface. The firm offered pieces uniquely made and tailored to the client, which fostered a long-lived dynamic where they were able to capture trends while remaining faithful to their own style, without ever being too influenced by fashions.
In the 1940's and 1950's, having opened a branch in Rome, Colli was at the peak of productivity. The embroidery and textile section continued to be one of its strengths, keeping alive the relations with France and its great masters: among the inspirations were the geometric shapes of the fabrics of Ruhlmann's interiors, or the tactile carpets made by designer Mariod Dorn. And so, another Colli trademark became the "textured carpet", in which the decoration was not dictated by the design, but by the different height of the wool. After Pier Luigi's death in 1968, the company was successfully run by his daughter Claudia. The company later closed in the 1980's making Pier Luigi Colli's distinctive and masterly crafted furniture highly sought after all over the world.
