Seven bags, two cities and one shared project. A collaboration between Italy and Brazil has evolved into an international design journey, bringing together different cultures, materials and design languages.
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Chimera – Hybrid Artifacts: Design Connects Turin and São Paulo
Date
14 September 2026
A chimera is the unexpected harmony of a form that holds multiple identities within it. This idea lies at the heart of Chimera – Hybrid Artifacts, a project developed as part of the COIL – Collaborative Online International Learning – programme between IED Torino and IED São Paulo. The initiative was conceived to offer students an international, interdisciplinary learning experience while creating new connections between Italian and Brazilian design cultures.
The project brought together around 27 students, working in seven mixed teams. In Torino, second-year Jewellery Design students took part, while participants in São Paulo were selected through an open call for Undergraduate and One Year students. Working in international teams encouraged cultural exchange and created an opportunity to bring different skills, perspectives and creative approaches into conversation.
The workshop began with a question: how can the cultural and artistic connections between Turin and São Paulo be explored through a critical and creative lens? This became the starting point for a shared design process developed through online meetings and reviews using collaborative platforms such as Miro and Zoom. Beginning in October 2025 with the project brief and the formation of the teams, the process moved through research, creative and technical development, material selection and prototyping, followed by the final presentation in December 2025 and, in 2026, the integration of the components produced across the two campuses.
The concept behind Chimera challenged each team to create a bag made up of elements developed separately in Turin and São Paulo, yet designed from the outset to complement one another. The prototypes produced in Brazil were later sent to Turin and incorporated into the leather bags made by the Italian students. Only when the two parts were physically brought together did each object become complete, making collaboration not simply a way of working, but the very essence of the project.
The result is seven hybrid artifacts in which Torino and São Paulo come together through references spanning architecture and nature, craftsmanship and urban culture. Lina Bo Bardi’s MASP, Torino’s arcades, the Amazon rainforest, Brazilian Carnival and the material traditions of both cities became part of a shared design narrative. Leather, metal, raffia, macramé and contemporary materials have shaped a collection that retains traces of its different origins while finding a new identity through the encounter between cultures.
The seven bags – Nexa Handbag, Dromea, Nomadic Versatility, Pure Breath, Trigon Bag, Nos Nodi and Architectural Dialogues – will be presented to the public at Lineapelle Fair, where the completed projects will be on display in the IED exhibition space at Fiera Milano Rho, from 15 to 17 September 2026. The exhibition will offer visitors the opportunity to discover the tangible outcome of a design experience spanning two continents, built on dialogue, cross-cultural exchange and design’s ability to forge new connections.
ARCHITECTURAL DIALOGUES
Architectural Dialogues brings together Turin’s neoclassical elegance and São Paulo’s brutalist modernism. Leather, engraved surfaces and colour contrasts translate the architectural language of the two cities into a balance of solid and void, and a dialogue between memory and contemporaneity. Like a small piece of portable architecture, the bag captures this tension and transforms it into harmony, showing how design can create new connections through cultural cross-pollination.
NOS NODI
Nos Nodi finds in the knot a symbol of the connection between Turin and São Paulo. The arcaded architecture of the Piedmontese city intertwines with the texture of Brazilian raffia, giving rise to a form that speaks of collaboration and belonging. Engraved brass pendants preserve traces of this dialogue, transforming material into memory. The bag does not simply represent the fusion of two aesthetic languages; it becomes the visible expression of a bond carefully and patiently built through the design process.
TRIGON BAG
Trigon Bag interprets the collaboration between Italy and Brazil through a synthesis of technical precision and craftsmanship. The geometry of the triangle, inspired by the ball used for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil and by the visual language of artist Eduardo Kobra, meets the precision of Italian leatherworking and the texture of Brazilian macramé. Designed for outdoor use, the bag combines lightness, ergonomics and durability, becoming a symbol of collaboration between two complementary design cultures.
NOMADIC VERSATILITY
Nomadic Versatility reimagines travel as a space for encounter. The rich textures of the Amazon rainforest enter into dialogue with the outline of Turin’s Lingotto Bridge, weaving together nature and architecture in an accessory designed to adapt to different ways of living and moving. Versatility thus becomes both a design principle and a cultural quality: the ability to move through places and experiences while continuing to evolve without losing one’s identity.
DROMEA
Dromea comes to life where restraint meets celebration. The clean lines of its silhouette preserve the memory of Carnival, evoked by the engraved metal handle featuring motifs inspired by the feathers of traditional costumes. The balance between sleek surfaces and symbolic details gives rise to an elegant bag that conveys the spirit of a collective celebration through a refined object, in which the precision of Italian design meets and enhances Brazilian cultural heritage.
PURE BREATH
Pure Breath takes shape from a shared breath connecting two landscapes: the Amazon rainforest, the lungs of the planet, and Turin, one of Italy’s greenest cities. The lines of the bag evoke branches, bronchi, leaf veins and tree-lined avenues, giving form to an accessory in which anatomy, nature and the urban landscape coexist in harmony. An organic chimera that reminds us that what keeps us alive is also what connects us to one another.
NEXA HANDBAG
Nexa explores the encounter between Italian leather craftsmanship and the urban energy of São Paulo. Its geometric composition draws inspiration from Lina Bo Bardi’s Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), translating its architectural language into a wearable object. Leather, denim and acrylic create a tactile dialogue between craftsmanship and street culture, transforming the bag into a small fragment of the city: a space of cross-pollination where design rigour and freedom of expression coexist within a single identity.
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