“Clothing as Celebration.” TADO Madrid
presents
Sylvie Fiachetti founder of TADO Madrid, an iconic shop dedicated to Spanish ceramics located in Calle Echegaray in the old Barrio Las Letras.
Echegaray Street is the coolest according by a recent survey by Time Out Magazine. The reason? it boasts an attractive cultural and gastronomic offer concentrated in a few meters. Combining a taste for the past with the modernity that being the capital of a country requires, Echegaray is a cobbled street, with tall buildings and pastel tones, with trees that guard the sidewalks and stimuli left and right. You can “taste the tastiest ramen in the city; savor signature cocktails; travel to the Roaring 20's and discover the life of Josephine Baker through mixed drinks and tapas; get the latest literary novelties in one of the most charming bookstores; buy unique ceramic pieces at TADO; enjoy a dinner and party with a Mexican air in a spectacular venue; stay in one of the most sophisticated urban hotels…”
1. Who is Sylvie Fiachetti?
A French woman from Antón Martín, happily trapped in Madrid for the last three decades.
2. Why Madrid?
Because Madrid always manages to surprise me. There is elegance in the apparent frivolity of the people of Madrid and the city is clean and welcoming inside its granite exteriors.
3. Why Barrio Las Letras?
It has pedigree and it has life. It is a good summary of Spain; the convents are next to the theaters. Our street has a mixture of a bookstore, a bar, a tablao flamenco, a workshop, a luxury hotel, all mixed with old-time neighbors' houses.
Important writers such as Cervantes, Góngora, Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca, José de Echegaray or Jacinto Benavente lived in the Barrio de las Letras. Today, on the tiles of its sidewalks you can read quotes from these important authors in golden letters.
4. What do you like most about the neighborhood?
That the neighbors still greet each other and walk around. Businesses still belong to people, there are not so many franchises. On the way from my house to the store, in 5meters, I greet an average of 10 people every morning, we have been exchanging smiles and Hello for years. There is still something of the traditional Madrid, welcoming and generous towards tourists, but not completely surrendered to them like others.
The "good tongues" say that in this street you can taste the tastiest ramen in the city, savor the coolest cocktails and enter a fascinating cultural space.
5. What is special/interesting about Spanish ceramics?
Spain has very marked identities in each of its regions. That richness is found in its traditional objects and in the personalities of its artisans. They drink from many sources, in reality and metaphorically.
6. What is the TADO universe?
They are the workshops that give us the best of themselves, a pause, objects without molds. TADO is a space to make you want to discover more.
7. The wooden lamps that you placed next to the mud silk kimono on the wall? Who is the author ? What is the story?
Stuart Williams is the creator of the lamps. I have a lot of admiration for him. He lived 2 steps from the store 2 years ago, that's how we started working. And back in Australia, he did not forget Spain. He is a designer who sometimes makes special pieces himself. Wood is its privileged material. Here he used reclaimed remnants of wild woods from Tasmania, where he lives, to make those lamps that he delivered to Tado. In other words, we have here parts of very old trees from the other side of the world, chosen one by one. They came to Tado because Stuart took advantage of a trip to Spain to build that bridge, hand carrying his lamps.
8. TADO and sustainability….
It is our whole purpose; people, resources… our own reason for being.
9. TADO and everyday life…
Rutine is a dangerous concept that can make you go safely to a comfortable place, fitting into a format molded for you….In short, rutine scares me so much that I surround myself with objects and people who constantly wake me up and bother me so as not to let myself be seduced by its redundancy.
10. TADO and nature...
It is the source, the example, the essence.
11. The present of TADO…
It is my constant challenge as I strive to invite a subtle discovery of techniques, traditions, places….
12. The future of TADO
Hopefully amazing! We work in that direction.
13. For Sylvie what is done by hand is…
First and foremost respect for the material. When you know how to use a material in the best possible way, I think you develop an economy in everything: there is not an extra gesture, nothing is left over, and you forcefully take care of the material, the person and, by default, the object.
14. Two favorite pieces?
A pair of vases where the potter disappears to let the earth speak better, very fine, very smooth, with hardly any author's marks.
Do you remember that Chinese story in which a painter ends up disappearing in his painting? which materializes, well that's it. That feeling, living things…..
15. Mud silk and TADO
It's an intriguing technique! Very interesting! A material that mix the animal, creator of silk in this case, and the mineral, mud, and artisans.
16. Your favorites in the neighborhood
-The Caixa Forum building
-Ico Foundation for its exhibitions and catalogs
-Taberna La Venecian for its authenticity, tough as life itself! (no photos, no reservations!)
-Motteau for its tasty tarte tatin.
-Many shops! Hard to choose. ..Walk its streets!!! Or visit my neighbor Crazy Mary Libreria
