Mirei Monticelli Is Reimagining Philippine Materials Through Italian Design

In her award-winning “Aphrodite” lamp, the Milan-based Filipino designer turns abaca into sculptural work that bridges two design traditions.

What happens when you mix Italian craftsmanship with Philippine materials? You get the work of Mirei Monticelli, a Milan-based Filipina industrial designer and sculptural lighting artist.

At the fourth edition of LVMH Métiers d’Excellence’s Premio Maestri d’Eccellenza, Monticelli won the Maestro dell’Innovazione d’Eccellenza (Master of Excellence in Innovation) award. The honor is for a major craftsmanship competition whose core purpose is to preserve, protect, and raise awareness of rare, historical manufacturing skills and artisanal savoir-faire, reinterpreting them for the modern world.

For her submission, Monticelli presented her “Aphrodite” lamp, which takes inspiration from The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli. The lampshade is made from banaca fabric (Philippine abacaAbacaA strong natural fiber from the abaca plant, also called Manila hemp, native to the Philippines. Designers and weavers use it for textiles, bags, hats, and sculptural fashion, prized forGo to Abaca Glossary and banana fibers), while the lamp base is cement reinforced with abaca fiber.

“I liked the play between how it seems so fragile, but it’s actually strong because it’s the strongest natural fiber in the world,” she tells Vogue Philippines. “The softness of the fabric gives it this tension between strength and fragility.”

Monticelli was introduced to the material at an early age, as her mother’s atelier works closely with local weavers and farmers who produce the fibers and fabrics in Catanduanes and Bicol. She shares that she felt connected to the material from a young age, which led her to return to it when she began her design practice.

“It’s really touching [seeing how the weavers and farmers] live and their passion for their work, and how thankful they are for this livelihood that sustains them,” she says. “It’s really special because not only does it look good and I can work with it, but it’s the people behind it that really touch me about the material itself.”

The designer and artist earned her master’s degree in Design and Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, which taught her about Italian design sensibilities such as “their appreciation for art and history” and innovation. “A lot of things that I learned are what I put into practice, and I wouldn’t have been able to do this without learning all these techniques,” she says.

Then, she founded her interdisciplinary practice, Stuidiomirei, in Milan in 2019.

Initially, Monticelli admits, she didn’t consider herself a fit for the LVMH competition. But after being encouraged, she decided to submit.

She says that the award almost felt like a surprise, as she expected it to go to a “100% Italian brand.” “But I was really happy because one of the ministers gave his speech before the award, and he was like, ‘We’re happy to see that there are foreigners who are actually thriving in Italian soil,’” she recalls. “Having them sort of accept me, I felt really happy about that.”

While there is much to celebrate, Monticelli says that she feels like she’s “just touched the tip of the iceberg” as a designer and artist. She looks forward to experimenting with more materials and developing her practice.

With this award, she hopes her practice draws people’s attention to Philippine-made materials. “There’s an importance in the material, especially our natural resources, because that’s the strength of Filipinos,” she says. “If we give value to it, the whole world will see it too.”