Casa Castiglioni

Edie Cohen -- Interior Design, 3/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

One might suppose that the daughter of Achille Castiglioni would follow in at least some of her father's footsteps. Architecture? Interiors? Industrial design? Graphics? Negative to all. Monica Castiglioni's creative passion is jewelry, which she's been designing and handcrafting nonstop for 28 years.

Her limited-edition bronze or silver rings, necklaces, pendants, and bracelets are big, bold, and, yes, architecturally inclined. They're also light-years removed from the gem-studded baubles found in most shops along Via Montenapoleone in her native Milan, the city where she still lives six months a year and operates a small store and workshop. Called Anthias, it's near the Milano Centrale train station and not far from the studio that her father operated before his death in 2002.

"Many of my artist friends are in Milan, but I don't like the city's grayness and petit bourgeois attitudes," she says. So she spends the other half of the year in New York, where her designs are carried by the likes of Moss, Karkula, and the shop at the Museum of Modern Art.

"I never relied on my father's name. For me, Achille was Babbo. My father. And that's it," she proclaims. "But he did teach me to absorb and to do what I like." Nowadays, that means occasionally putting down her soldering iron and picking up a Nikon camera to shoot photos for herself and this magazine.

Clockwise from top: Achille Castiglioni's Lampadina for Flos, 1972, has an anodized-aluminum base and a partially sandblasted glass globe. Also for Flos, Castiglioni and brother Pier Giacomo's Arco lamp, 1962, combines a Carrara marble base with a stainless-steel telescoping stem and an aluminum reflector. In Italy in 1964, a 3-year-old Monica Castiglioni sits with mother Irma, father Achille, and German shepherd Topessa.

Clockwise from top right: Monica Castiglioni's mobile Vertebre pendant is in bronze. Her Pistilli ring, shown in bronze, also comes in nickle-free silver. A promotional poster starring Achille Castiglioni remains in his longtime Milan studio, now open to the public. Monica Castiglioni took this portrait of herself. Her father's Fucsia glass pendant fixtures hang at Anthias, her Milan store and workshop.

Clockwise from top left: This Vertebre bracelet is in bronze. Monica Castiglioni designed the Long necklace in mother-of-pearl. The two rings she always wears appear in a portrait. This bronze necklace is called Zanne. The Catena Superleggera necklace cascades in silver. Her one-of-a-kind silver ring, Multi Virgole, is set with a moonstone. This bronze ring is part of the Pistilli collection.