On May 8th, Jil Sander Design Talks returned to Venice with a new edition staged during the 2025 Architecture Biennale, continuing the brand’s commitment to fostering dialogue between design, craft, and culture. Held inside the newly opened Jil Sander flagship at Piazza San Marco 78, the conversation centered on a bold collaboration with Formafantasma and the renowned Murano glassmakers Venini.
Curated by editor Dan Thawley, the talk delved into the creative friction between innovation and tradition, which defines both the 2025 Architecture Biennale and the spirit of Jil Sander Design Talks. The result of this unique collaboration is the venini vase series titled STONE—a quartet of hand-sculpted vessels, each limited to just nine editions.
Rather than using molds, Formafantasma allowed the hot glass to evolve freely, producing deeply textured, craquelé surfaces shaped by heat, water, and time. Each venini vase is a one-of-a-kind object: raw, expressive, and materially rich. Displayed exclusively in the brand’s redesigned Venice store—whose interior was also conceived by Formafantasma—the vases mirror the layered identity of the city itself.
“What is fascinating when you enter a fornaise is our masters. They have to be very intuitive and prepared for something you couldn’t forecast. And sometimes, what you cannot forecast is even more beautiful than what you expected.” – Silvia Damiani, President at Venini
With this project, Jil Sander Design Talks expands its narrative, aligning fashion with the evolving disciplines of contemporary design showcased during the 2025 Architecture Biennale.
Don’t miss our conversation with Carlo Ratti, curator of the 2025 Architecture Biennale, on why cities still matter, how beauty defies uniformity, and the subtle influence of algorithms.
Photography courtesy of JIL SANDERxVENINI