Felci Yacht was present at the Cannes Yachting Festival with two new Custom projects designed for ICE yachts- a yard specializing in building exclusive custom-built yachts in very small series – and its latest project for Dufour Yachts, the new ‘entry level’ of the famous French shipyard specialising in large series production.
Apparently therefore two different production worlds with two different types of customers.
How do you combine these two worlds within a single design studio?
Bringing together these two worlds, these two ways of interpreting both design and the project as a whole, is certainly not something that can be improvised.
We have been fortunate enough to have had to relate to these two realities from our very beginnings; we have always had to split our time between making unique products, communicating directly with the end customer, and designing boats, both racing and cruising, destined to be reproduced in multiple units.
How is it possible to combine the technical requirements necessary to produce a custom-made project down to executive detail with those of easy production and product transversality necessary for a project intended for series production?
It’s true, the two types of design are very different, both in concept and technical terms.
On the one hand, there is the need to create a unique, custom-made object, tailored for the customer, while respecting the peculiarities and traditions of the shipyard; on the other hand, there is the need to create an economically sustainable product, easy to mass-produce, but not lacking in those aesthetic and functional values that today’s market can no longer give up.
In order to succeed in combining these requirements, which at times may even appear to be opposing, a very broad competence is needed, which makes it possible to dialogue constructively with the various players involved, and also the ability to weigh up, evaluate and know how to carry out the various choices with balance.
What is your connection with the creations of Felci Yacht, once your designs are turned into reality?
We feel that our designs generate what will become the life, the character of the boat or boats that will be born in the future.
In a way, beyond all the requests we receive, we like to think that we are the ones who give a certain DNA to a project and thus to a real object.
Clearly, during the development of the project there will be the necessary mediations, the necessary balances linked to the world of production with which we will be dealing, but certainly the ability to dialogue with the clients first, and then with the workers is one of the most difficult and most fascinating aspects of this job.
How much gratification does your presence at Cannes give you?
The new 
projects that are presented by Felci Yacht here at Cannes certainly give meaning to our work, not just that of the yard that physically builds them.
It seems clear to me that successful products, as we hope those of Ice Yachts and Dufour will be, are such thanks to the experience and commitment of so many entities.
Design, by definition, is carried out first and therefore has the specific task of drawing the guidelines that the rest of the process must then follow.
This does not mean imposing one’s own choices and personal vision of the product, but working with a clear responsibility for one’s role and what, if well managed, it can bring to the product.
