Palomba+Serafini: design that blends spaces

15 September 2026

The idea of contemporary living is increasingly transcending the traditional boundaries between indoors and outdoors, prioritizing continuity, comfort, and flexibility. In this interview, Ludovica Serafini and Roberto Palomba discuss the birth of Talenti Home, the new project marking the brand’s entry into the world of interior design, and delve into the philosophy behind Elton In&Out, a furnishing system designed to adapt to the different moments of everyday life.

From the quality of the materials to the modularity, to the dialogue with fashion and fine upholstery, a design vision emerges capable of interpreting new ways of living without sacrificing elegance, functionality, and design identity.

Interview conducted in Italian – English translation and editorial adaptation.

Talenti was born as a company synonymous with outdoor living and today makes its debut in interior design with Talenti Home. How did you translate the expertise gained in outdoor spaces into a language designed for interiors, avoiding a simple transposition of existing products?

The goal wasn’t simply to transpose outdoor products into indoor versions, but to build a true company within the company, with a completely independent line. We wanted to develop a collection with its own identity, without simply reinterpreting existing products. The family feeling with the Talenti world remains, as does the attention to design and comfort, but everything has been redesigned to meet the needs of contemporary interior living. Design language, comfort, and aesthetic coherence were the drivers that guided the creation of Talenti Home.

We’re talking about “fluid” living, where indoor and outdoor become part of a single experience. From a design perspective, what are the elements that truly allow us to overcome this boundary today? Is it a question of materials, aesthetics, or a new way of experiencing the home?

For us, blurring the line between indoor and outdoor stems primarily from two elements: quality and comfort. Quality encompasses every aspect of the project: the design, the materials, the construction, and all the elements that contribute to the creation of a high-end product. Comfort, on the other hand, is what truly determines the user experience and, consequently, the product’s form. The real challenge was to bring the same level of comfort and livability traditionally associated with interiors to the outdoors. When outdoor furniture offers the same naturalness, the same welcoming feeling, and the same quality of use as an indoor product, the boundary between the two worlds dissolves spontaneously. This, more than a question of materials or style, is the true meaning of fluid living.

The new collections alternate reinterpretations of outdoor icons with completely new projects, with references ranging from interior design to music. How important is it today to build a story behind a collection, and how do we prevent the narrative from prevailing over the quality of the project?

Good design is a necessary condition, but today it’s no longer sufficient. It’s important that a product also inspire those who choose it and experience it over time. Talking about a collection doesn’t mean imposing a style or constructing an artificial narrative, but rather creating a bridge between the design’s qualities and the emotion it elicits. Today, not everyone has the opportunity to experience a product firsthand: not everyone visits a trade show or showroom, and even when they do, the experience is often partial. Storytelling serves precisely to bridge this gap, helping the public imagine the product in its intended context and understand its values before even trying it. Storytelling, however, can never replace design: it must simply be the tool that makes its identity clearer and more immediate.

Elton In&Out was conceived as a system capable of adapting to different lifestyles, thanks to its highly advanced modularity and reclining backrests and armrests. What was the most complex design challenge in combining this compositional freedom with the formal elegance that characterizes the collection?

More than a challenge, it was a natural evolution of the project. We wanted to bring to the outdoors features that until now have been almost exclusively reserved for the indoor world, such as the ability to easily adjust the configuration and comfort levels to suit different times of the day. Contemporary spaces are constantly changing their function: the same sofa can be used differently in the morning, in the afternoon, or in the evening. Thanks to simple adjustments of the backrests and armrests, it is possible to transformQuickly transform the way you experience the product, without compromising its elegance. Modularity is therefore not a technical exercise, but a tool to make furniture more versatile and closer to new ways of living.

For Elton, you cite the world of fashion and fine upholstery as sources of inspiration, speaking of tailored stitching and attention to detail. How can dialogue with disciplines seemingly distant from product design enrich the design of a contemporary furniture system?

A designer never lives inside a bubble. Their work arises from the continuous observation of their surroundings and the ability to be influenced by different disciplines, languages, and worlds. There are no rigid boundaries between design, fashion, art, or architecture: cross-fertilization has always been one of the drivers of innovation. Ultimately, the best projects are a chronicle of their time and, sometimes, even manage to anticipate it. For this reason, when working with textiles, it’s natural to look to fashion, which represents one of the fields in which this material has reached its highest expression. The workmanship, stitching, attention to detail, and material sensitivity thus become a source of inspiration capable of enriching the project, without ever distorting its function.

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