From the sticker museum in Modena: how the Cameo Exchange began

There is an afternoon in 2013 I remember precisely. I was in Modena, curating a design event, surrounded by designers from half of Europe and by conversations about objects and their meaning.

The idea came from somewhere else.

The sticker museum

In Modena there is a museum devoted to collectible stickers, born from the Panini family collection. I walked in almost by chance and came out with an idea in my head.

In those cases I wasn't seeing collectibles. I was seeing small drawings, held inside a precise space, and a frame that made them look more important than they were. Always the same frame, and something different inside it every time.

I asked myself: what if a bag stopped being a fixed object? What if it were the frame, and you chose what goes inside?

The frame, that same evening

I went home and drew the oval that same evening. It had to stand on its own as a piece of design — it's my signature on the bag — and at the same time let something else in.

The frame is aluminium, in gold, platinum and black anodised finishes. Three snap buttons around the inner edge hold the cameo under tension: no folds, no slipping. You change it in ten seconds, with no tools, and the bag is another one.

A bag that doesn't finish

The Cameo Exchange isn't a monogram and isn't a colour picked from a catalogue. It's the same bag you've carried for years, with something different on the front whenever you decide: a plain cameo for work, a silk one for the evening, an artist's piece when one comes out.

Twelve years later, the frame is still the one drawn in Modena. The size has never changed.