Botané Studios at Chapters during Design Week: A Conversation with the Founder

A Conversation with Botané

1. Botané feels more like a world than a traditional brand. How would you define it today?

You’re right, Botané isn’t just a traditional brand. It’s really more of a design universe, and in many ways, we’re building a completely new category, what we call botanical interior design.

For us, that means moving away from seeing botanicals as something temporary or decorative, and instead treating them as permanent, sculptural elements within a space.

At the core, Botané is about creating atmosphere that lasts. It sits somewhere between design, long lasting and spatial experience, and everything we do is about translating that into something people can actually live with, in a way that feels consistent and effortless.

So we’re not just selling objects, we’re really trying to reshape how botanicals exist in modern interiors.

2. Your work sits somewhere between design, nature, and spatial storytelling. Where does Botané begin for you?

It always begins with a spatial intention. Not a product, but a feeling of how a space should exist. Calm, grounded, coherent, effortless.

From there, we translate that intention into compositions. Each element is considered in relation to proportion, light, texture, and architectural context. In that sense, Botané is less about nature itself, and more about interpreting nature into a controlled, design-led system.

3. There’s a strong sense of atmosphere in everything you create. Do you think in terms of objects, or environments first?

Always environments.

Even when we create a single piece, it is developed as part of a larger spatial narrative. The object only exists to serve the atmosphere.

Our role is not to decorate spaces, but to define how they feel. That is where the real value lies.

4. Materials seem to play a central role in your process. Do you start from the material, or from an idea?

It is a constant dialogue.

We often begin with an atmospheric idea, but materials are what allow that idea to become real. They determine how light is absorbed, how shadows behave, how something ages visually over time.

In Botané, materiality is not a detail, it is the foundation of how we create something that feels both permanent and alive.

5. There’s a balance in Botané between softness and structure, organic and intentional. Is that contrast something you actively seek?

Very much so. That balance is essential.

Nature itself is structured. It only appears soft because we don’t see the system behind it. What we do is bring that hidden structure forward, while preserving the organic feeling.

That tension between control and naturalness is what makes our work feel believable.

6. How important is imperfection in your work?

Imperfection is critical, but it is always intentional.

We design with a high level of precision to achieve something that feels effortless. Without that layer of imperfection, the work loses its emotional credibility.

It is often the smallest irregularities that make something feel real and grounded within a space.

7. Botané doesn’t feel trend-driven. How do you stay independent from the pace of the design industry?

We really operate on a longer timeline.

Our focus isn’t on reacting to seasonal trends, it’s on building a completely new category. And if you want to define a category, you can’t just follow trends, you have to create them. That naturally creates a certain distance from the pace of the industry.

When you design with longevity and consistency in mind, you stop chasing relevance, and instead you start defining it.

8. What do you think people misunderstand most about your work?

That it is about flowers.

In reality, it is about systems, atmosphere, and permanence. The botanicals are just the medium.

What we are building is a new way of integrating nature into interiors without the limitations of perishability.

9. Is Botané more about creating objects, or creating a way of seeing?

A way of seeing.

We are shifting perception, from something temporary and replaceable to something permanent and essential within a space.

That shift is what allows a completely new category to exist.

10. How do you imagine Botané evolving in the future — more products, more spaces, or something else entirely?

Naturally into spaces.

Products are the entry point, but the long-term direction is spatial integration at scale. Installations, retail environments, hospitality, offices, entire interior concepts.

Botané becomes part of the infrastructure of a space, not an addition to it.

11. If you had to describe Botané in one word, what would it be?

Expressions.

12. What led you to choose Chapters as the only location for your Milan activation, rather than other spaces in the city?

Because design alignment matters more than exposure.

Chapters already embodies a sense of calm, coherence, and design integrity that reflects our own universe. It allowed Botané to exist naturally within the space, rather than forcing a temporary installation into a context that didn’t belong to it.

We are very intentional about where we show up. It has to feel like an extension of our world, not a contrast to it.