Elas: woven wicker seating that breathes with natural grace

There is a particular language that natural materials speak when they are honoured rather than merely employed. Wicker, in the hands of those who understand its vocabulary, becomes something altogether more eloquent than utility: it becomes expression. Minotti’s new Elas collection speaks this language with remarkable clarity, each piece a meditation on the marriage of texture and form.

The collection emerges as an armchair and a bergère, both available in fixed and swivel iterations, each structure woven from wicker that catches the eye with the subtle irregularity of authentic craft. There is a quietness to these pieces, a confidence that requires no ornamentation beyond the material’s own surface play of light and shadow. The silhouette flows with a grace that feels both contemporary and timeless, the kind of proportion that settles into a room as though it has always belonged there.

Designed by the architectural practice Studio MK27, led by Marcio Kogan, the pieces carry the fingerprints of creators who understand the relationship between structure and inhabitation. The woven forms are not merely sitting surfaces but sculptural interventions, their curved arms and backs inviting occupation while maintaining an almost architectural presence in space. The swivel versions introduce a subtle dynamism, allowing the seated figure to move through the room without rising, a gentle freedom that speaks to modern living.

The Craft of Natural Expression

What distinguishes Elas is the respect paid to wicker as a material with its own inherent beauty. Rather than disguising or controlling its organic quality, the design celebrates it. The natural variations in tone and weave become the composition itself, each piece unique in the precise way that handmade objects are, yet consistent in intention. This is the Minotti philosophy: that luxury lives not in uniformity but in the honest expression of materials and the disciplines of their making.

The bergère version, with its enclosed sides, offers a more intimate gathering of form, while the armchair presents a more open geometry. Both invite you to touch them, to understand how the wicker bends and holds, how it responds to the body’s weight and the body’s need for comfort. This is seating designed not for display but for living, though it is beautiful enough to be both.

Elas represents a moment in contemporary design where the handmade and the considered come together with such ease that they seem inevitable. It is the kind of collection that will age beautifully, its surfaces deepening and softening over years, becoming more personal and more particular to each home that receives it.

Imagery courtesy of Minotti (@minotti_spa).