Profile Paola Lenti

The textile and color maven looks back on 25 years of her eponymous brand.

- Melissa Feldman

“Color is my legacy,” says designer Paola Lenti. “It’s nothing I can take credit for, or control. It’s just how my mind works,” she continues, describing the probing meditations on color that have come to define her oeuvre. Since childhood, Lenti has experimented with striking pigments, many of which she has gradually adapted into her signature yarns and applied to seating, accessories, and rugs for both indoor and outdoor environments.

Born in Piedmont in northwest Italy in 1958, Lenti underwent a classical education before enrolling at the Polytechnic School of Design in Milan, where distinguished graphic designers Bruno Munari and Walter Ballmer held court. After graduating, the understated Lenti worked for Italian fashion brands as a graphic designer and art director. In 1994, after years of trying her hand at producing objects following her own ideas, she quietly established her self-named brand with an express emphasis on textiles and materials research.