Antonio Morello put a British city on an Italian desk

Somewhere in the product list of Antonio Morello sits a very British word. The Sicilian-born designer — Sant'Agata di Militello, 1963 — moved to Padua in 1982, specialised in office furniture, and since 1991 has worked inside DVO as the man responsible for design, engineering and industrialisation. His systems often borrow their names from cities across the map, and the executive range called Oxford is the one that concerns British readers: an Italian answer wearing an English name. Behind the christening stands a method: one designer following each product from sketch to production line for over thirty years.

La Mercanti carries DVO and the Oxford system with it — alongside other Morello designs such as Entity and Vertigo — for offices that enjoy the irony of buying Oxford from Italy.