The project was born from a desire to regain rattan as a very noble material and our country’s rich artisanal tradition in working with it. I aimed to give a new appearance to a centuries-old technique. Rattan cane is lightweight and resistant but very flexible. Traditionally, this issue has been solved by introducing multiple brackets tied to the main structure. In my design, I replaced the usual bracing and ties as connecting elements by overlapping one cane with the next. With this innovative resource, we achieved a flexible yet resistant structure of very little weight. A light, warm, friendly, and luxurious chair in the truest sense of the term.

It was called Fontal – “belonging to the source”– because Expormim, which now produces furniture in many materials, and also in the East, decided, in our case, to go back to its origins: to rattan and to the historic local knowledge of how to work with it.