Not far from Venice, in the historic city of Padova, there is a company with the deliberately styled name of Made[LAB].
Founded in 2014 by printer / fabricator Luciano Rossi, the company has built up an impressive clientele of premium and luxury brands who turn to the company for elaborate invitations, greetings cards, bespoke envelopes and packages, paper samples (such as Materia Viva, see Pulp 22), boxes and all manner of flamboyant, eye-catching artefacts.
Made[LAB]’s service is tailored to the European luxury market, with clients including Dior, Tiffany, Audemars Piguet, Richard Mille, Van Cleef & Arpels, Laurent Perrier, Davidoff, Viktor&Rolf and Louis Vuitton. However Christophe Balaresque, Made[LAB]’s marketing / sales representative at the company’s Paris office, is quick to point out that they never act as brokers. Everything they make is done in-house in Padua, with a collection of craftspeople, tools and machines old and new that can make anything they dream up. Working with paper, fabrics, resins, woods and other materials, Made[LAB]’s aim is to see each small-scale project through all the stages of invention, prototyping, production and finishing, to the highest, most exacting standards. The website lists the company’s seven artisan processes, which include ‘paired emboss’ and ‘craft gravure’, and its 21 special processes, which include laser and die cutting, edge gilding, tape binding and box engineering.
For Tiffany Céleste’s Blue Book 2024, the company crafted a cloth-covered box with silver foiling using the cold stamp foil method. Plus a custom kaleidoscope. For Dior’s Cruise collection, Made[LAB] created a range of carefully engineered boxes with multi-coloured metallic foils. The same company’s hand finished and hand-folded New Year card (2024) pulled out all the stops, with ultrafine laser cutting, hot stamp foiling, die-cutting, duplex and paper engineering. Founder Rossi describes Dior, Paris as one of Made[LAB]’s ‘oldest most loyal clients’. The outrageous, pink and black limited-edition Viktor&Rolf ‘Flowerbomb’ box (shown on the previous pages) used a host of special processes to mimic the brand’s wax seal and an outer ribbon.
Made[LAB]’s own promotional items, designed (like its identity and website), by Studio.Build, the practice founded by Michael C. Place in the north of England, show the same commitment to innovation with new printing and finishing techniques, pushing traditional methods to the limit.