Promemoria

The frog is Promemoria's emblem. Romeo Sozzi has collected them for decades and the company made it a symbol of metamorphosis. A small thing, but it tells you how this business relates to its own objects.

Sozzi founded Promemoria in 1988 at Valmadrera, near Lecco. Born in 1948 and trained at the Brera academy in Milan, he comes from four generations of cabinetmakers and still draws his pieces in a sketchbook, translating shapes taken from landscape. The Valmadrera workshops bring cabinetmaking, upholstery and a dedicated leather laboratory under one roof, working in bronze, ebony, mahogany, alabaster and onyx. Marquetry and weaving are done by hand.

The Bilou Bilou chair of 1999 sums up the method: a beech frame sleeved in stretch velvet, linen or nappa, oak legs, made in three sizes including one for children. In 2015 Promemoria bought Bottega Ghianda, the cabinetmaking workshop founded by Pierluigi Ghianda in Brianza, shortly before his death. David Collins Studio, Bruno Moinard and Olivier Gagnère have all designed collections for the house.

Artopia carries Promemoria in Geneva. A large part of the catalogue is made to measure, so these are pieces you commission after a conversation rather than references you take away.