Luxury in the everyday
18 de January de 2026At contemporary design auctions, it is often something surprisingly familiar that arouses interest: a chair, a lamp or a domestic object. Auction houses have known this for a long time: value lies not only in the object itself, but also in its provenance and its ability to connect the past and the present.
Contemporary luxury seems to have been slow to reach this conclusion. For years, it was understood as ostentation and distance, as something to be looked at and not used. Today, however, luxury has shifted from consumption to connection, and in that shift there is something deeply cultural, even political: a vindication of the familiar and the authentic.
Contemporary luxury seems to have been slow to reach this conclusion. For years, it was understood as ostentation and distance, as something to be looked at and not used. Today, however, luxury has shifted from consumption to connection, and in that shift there is something deeply cultural, even political: a vindication of the familiar and the authentic.
Luxury is found in ordinary things. In objects that are part of everyday life and, precisely because of this, matter more than they seem at first glance. Objects born from a local context, from a specific way of doing things, from materials and knowledge that belong to a place rather than a market. This is not a new idea. A piece of furniture, a lamp or an electrical mechanism are carriers of memory and local know-how. Of inherited gestures. The object matters because it is the meeting point between history and the moment, between need and desire. That is where luxury ceases to be a spectacle and becomes culture.
Fontini has always worked from this perspective. Since 1950, when Joan Font founded the family business that is now Font Design Group, the idea has been clear: even the most everyday objects, such as a light switch, deserve to be designed with beauty and precision, based on a deeply local logic rooted in a particular way of doing things. An approach in which design is not detached from the territory or the craft. Garby, its iconic porcelain collection, produced locally and by hand, encapsulates this vision. It reinterprets classic mechanisms with authenticity and without fanfare.
“The true essence of luxury lies in time, skill and heritage. In contrast to the interchangeable, identity. Perhaps that is, today, the most honest form of luxury.”
