We find inspiration in the unexpected and handmade alchemy of cultures colliding. We believe the artist’s hand has the power to transform age-old traditions into new creations. We honor the ties that bind an object to its origins, and we understand luxury as a way of deeply connecting with the people and the things that surround us.”
This is the ethos of L’Aviva Home, the brand founded by Laura Aviva who, after eight years as the Creative Director for Travel + Leisure magazine, started her own creative project.
In her New York City home, which is also her studio, Aviva and her small team design lamps, rugs, cushions, and wallpapers that are fabricated in different parts of the world, from Latin America to Africa and beyond. Behind every product is the hand of a skilled craftsperson.
“Each of our collections is born from a collaboration with master artisans,” says Aviva.“We marry their distinctive style with our own, designing through a process of shared vision.” Mexico holds a special place in her heart. “I have been spending time in Mexico since I was a baby and have, for many years, spent a month or two there… for both vacation and work,” she explains.
“I’ve traveled all over the country while I was at Travel + Leisure and now with L’Aviva Home. It’s hands-down my favorite country in the world […] both for its traditions and the people.” Raised in L.A., she adds that “the Mexican influence was a weighty one, especially in the realm of design—the Mexican design vernacular in Southern California is ‘mother tongue,’ and it really formed my design sensibility.”
L’Aviva Home’s newest collections include the Piedra lighting line, sculpted in the Mexican city of Tecalí from marble and onyx. The lighting fixtures’ clean lines and defined angles were inspired by the stone masks of the ancient Mexican civilization of Teotihuacan. Meanwhile, the Agave lighting collection was created in collaboration with glass studio Xaquixe in the Mexican city of Oaxaca.
This line features hand-blown glass pendants echoing the shape of the heart of the agave plant from which the beverage mezcal is made. A remote province in northwestern Argentina inspired L’Aviva’s Jujuy rug collection, comprising colorful wool rugs produced by a women’s cooperative in the region and L’Aviva Home’s workshop in Buenos Aires.
“Our departure points can range from a person to a tradition to a material to a workshop that inspires us,” says Aviva. “Wherever the inspiration starts, we then follow the trail—reaching into our network of friends, friends of friends, and word of mouth.
We seek to form collaborative relationships with the people we work with to create collections that are both uniquely ours and also ‘of a place’—they tell a visual story of where they are from and the tradition behind them.” lavivahome.com
PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY OF GENEVIEVE GARRUPPO AND L’AVIVA HOME (COLLECTION)