Laetitia de Allegri and Matteo Fogale is a design studio based in London. Laetitia grew up in Switzerland and graduated in Industrial design from ECAL 'Ecole Cantonale d'Art de Lausanne'. Matteo was born in Uruguay and moved to Italy where he graduated in Industrial design at IUAV Facoltà di Design e Arti in Venice. They both met in London where for several years they worked as designers for international studios before establishing their own practice.
The studio operates out of Blackhorse Workshop, 1-2 Sutherland Road, Path Walthamstow E17 6 BX, London, UK. Their approach combines industrial processes with fine craftsmanship, working across furniture, bespoke commissions, interiors, and installations. A commitment to honest materials and thoughtful making runs through every project.
Notable collaborations include work with COS, Airbnb, Bloomberg, Salviati, M.i.h Jeans, and the -ISH Collection. For Bloomberg, the studio created Re : Connect, a seating island and protective screens built from repurposed data cables woven with traditional caning techniques and set into resin table surfaces, with ash wood hand-bent by a London-based carpenter. The Salviati collaboration produced the Nereidi collection of unique glass vases, presented at Maison & Objet 2017 — pieces inspired by the Venetian lagoon, with solid bases giving way to airy, delicate upper forms.
Explore the Projects page for a fuller view of the studio's portfolio, or visit the Contact page for studio details.
The studio’s approach to design is rooted in a deep appreciation for material honesty and tactile expression. Every project begins with an exploration of how surfaces feel, how light interacts with texture, and how an object communicates its purpose through form alone. This quiet, research-driven process allows ideas to mature without the distraction of trend or ornament, resulting in pieces that feel both contemporary and enduring. The emphasis on handmade production techniques reinforces a connection between the designer’s intent and the final object, ensuring that each work carries a distinct, human presence within its material composition.
Collaboration sits at the heart of the practice, shaping projects that span furniture, lighting, sculpture, and spatial installation. Working across disciplines allows the studio to move fluidly between the intimate scale of a domestic object and the expansive demands of a public commission. This versatility is underpinned by a shared sensibility that values clarity, proportion, and restraint. Whether developing a bespoke wallpaper pattern or a sculptural centrepiece for an architectural interior, the studio brings the same considered attention to spatial dialogue, material juxtaposition, and the quiet drama of understated form.
The studio’s relationship with glass has become a defining thread throughout its body of work. Collaborations with Venetian maestros and historic manufacturers have opened a dialogue between contemporary design thinking and centuries-old craftsmanship. Glass, in its molten state, offers a moment of fluid unpredictability that demands both control and surrender from the designer. The resulting pieces often hover between function and sculpture, capturing colour, transparency, and reflection in ways that shift with the surrounding light and the viewer’s position, making each encounter with the object subtly different from the last.
Textiles and denim feature prominently in the studio’s material vocabulary, reflecting an ongoing fascination with how everyday fabrics can be elevated through thoughtful manipulation. Handmade jeans, in particular, embody a philosophy of slow production: each pair is constructed with an awareness of how the material will age, soften, and acquire character through wear. This sensibility extends to wider textile projects where pattern, weave, and surface treatment are explored not as decoration but as integral elements of structure, inviting touch and rewarding prolonged engagement with the object.
The studio’s work has found context in environments as varied as hospitality interiors, editorial commissions, and corporate settings. Projects for platforms such as Airbnb and Bloomberg demonstrate an ability to translate a restrained design language into spaces that serve distinct functional and cultural purposes. In each case, the studio approaches the brief with a commitment to clarity and atmosphere, favouring interventions that feel integral to the architecture rather than applied. The result is a portfolio that resists easy categorisation, united instead by a consistent sensibility and a belief in design as a slow, meaningful practice.
Wallpaper and surface design offer the studio a canvas for exploring repetition, rhythm, and the boundary between pattern and atmosphere. Rather than imposing a dominant graphic statement, these works often operate at the edge of perception, revealing their complexity only upon closer inspection. The interplay between a muted palette and subtle tonal variation creates surfaces that recede into a room, shaping mood without demanding attention. This approach reflects a broader studio philosophy: that the most lasting design interventions are those that integrate quietly, enriching a space over time rather than exhausting it on first encounter.
The mise en abyme, a formal technique of placing an image within itself, serves as a recurring conceptual reference in the studio’s thinking about depth, reflection, and the layering of meaning. This idea manifests not literally but as a structural principle: projects often contain echoes of earlier explorations, materials reference their own origins, and spatial compositions invite the viewer to look through one element into another. Such recursive thinking encourages a design practice that is self-aware without being self-indulgent, continuously refining its language through iteration while remaining open to the unexpected discoveries that arise along the way.