Between the late '70s and the early '80s, during the boom years of the Italian fashion industry, many fashion designers extended their businesses into homeware and interior design selling licences and launching collaborations with specific producers. Tableware and bed linens were popular options for most of them, but there were quite a few ones who focused on more durable elements, such as tiles.
The most popular options were ceramic tiles for bathrooms and the best thing about them was that these tiles weren't even extremely expensive. I do not come from an aristocratic family, but we had Valentino tiles in our bathroom (even though we opted for them not necessarily because Valentino had made them – in fact we couldn't care less – but because we liked the colour combination of the plants featured on them).
Valentino was actually one of the main fashion designers who did collaborations with tile manufacturers (mainly with Piemme). Shells, the sea and marine motifs were popular themes for bathroom tiles as proved by these tiles by Valentino (first image in this post), and by Italian painter, sculptor, designer and decorator Fornasetti (by Ceramica Bardelli), all on display at the Cupra Marittima Museum of Malacology.
The most interesting thing about such home elements was the fact that they were thought not with trends but with durability and timelessness in mind: tiles are indeed made to last and you rarely decide to change them on a whim. Maybe these designer tiles still have something to teach us: let's focus more on timelessness and less on trends when shopping not only for tiles, but also for clothes and accessories.
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