The R17 was a car that spoke volumes about its era: a rather “unorthodox” coupé, with nods to the wedge lines of its contemporaries – we’re in the 1970s, think Gandini and the Countach, for instance – but with space and proportions reminiscent of a grand tourer, embodying the radical spirit of Renault in those years, the same spirit that in 1972 brought the R5 to life. In 2024, French designer Ora Ïto has created an electric restomod of the R17 – now on display at Milan Design Week at the RNLT space on Corso Garibaldi – and from there unfolds a deeper conversation about what it means to design today. Ïto wanted to explore that with us at Domus.

Because more than a conventional restomod – where you take an old model, keep its iconic lines while updating the tech and adding modern details – his approach was a hacking of the car’s original spirit; more precisely, a “hijacking,” as he puts it, almost like what happen on a plane: “There was a full analysis of the car, and I identified all the points where we could intervene,” hence the widened rear end firmly planted to the ground, the emphasized “shark” front profile, and a complete redesign of the model’s source code, making it a clear example of a concept now central in design: retrofuturism.

But Ïto doesn’t really see it as a matter of retro. In truth, he doesn’t pay much attention to trends at all – “I live in my bubble”. His is more of an aesthetic, a deeply personal path often diverging from the mainstream.
Then again, when it comes to hacking, he’s an undisputed authority: his debut in 1997 came through the creation of fully virtual objects that “hacked” the world’s most famous brands (Nike, Vuitton, Apple), aiming to catch their attention. Spoiler alert: it worked. “I had a huge echo on social media [oops, wait] back then social media didn’t exist. It was all on a website, and the echo came through the internet and the press”, and that’s how the big names came calling, in product then furniture design, the likes of Cappellini, Cassina, Zanotta, and so on.

Such a path would be unthinkable today, Ora Ïto tells us: “When I started 25 years ago, at the Salone del Mobile you’d run into Jasper (Morrison), Marc (Newson), Ronan (Bouroullec), Christophe Pillet, Jean-Marie Massaud; there were maybe a dozen, twenty of us at most.”

Now the numbers have exploded. “Okay, it was a different time, but you still have to know how to live in your own era (…) Embracing new technologies, for example, without being overwhelmed by them”. As a long-running digital project expert, he’s already experimented with AI – even though, he adds, “we may have just put a nuclear weapon in dangerous hands” – but he appreciates the time it saves: “It doesn’t think like me yet, but at least it knows how to tell me what not to do.”

Everything has been taken to a higher level of industrialization, of professionalization, we think, as we return to talking about today’s Design Weeks. Ïto sees that shift even in how major fashion houses have taken the front rows in recent years, sometimes outpacing furniture brands, which only later caught on to professionalize their communications. Not necessarily a bad thing. But it’s also true that “If you lived that era,” the legendary Fuorisalone days of the early 2000s, “you can’t help but feel a bit nostalgic for that more artistic, less calculated side – more artisanal and spontaneous: maybe less professional, but much more charming”. A time when “becoming known was exceptional, it was a recognition of your efforts. But if someone asked me today, ‘Would you like to be famous?’ I’d say no”, because now “it’s scandal that sells.”

The artistic side of his work is something Ïto never puts aside. After all, he splits his time between Paris and his hometown, Marseille. There, he runs the art center that’s long occupied the iconic rooftop of Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation – this year hosting Sterling Ruby in collaboration with the Gagosian Gallery. Marseille remains a small but promising scene – and we always love talking to key players from rising scenes in art and design, like we did with Sabine Marcelis and Rotterdam – but when it comes to design, Ïto thinks of Italy as the “center of the world”: brands may come and go, rise and fall, but “working in Italy is always a joy, because there’s a desire to push things further, and they don’t stop until every last detail is perfect. Italy preserves a love for the product: even the sandwich you eat at the train station in Italy tastes good.” Elsewhere? Not so much.

And he says the same about Milan: it's evolving well, the art scene is increasingly important, with more museums and independent spaces opening. And every year, “it’s still amazing what you can find here – and how easy and beautiful it is to get lost in it.”