This is Old-World Maximalism...
Old-world maximalism is a raucous clamor of color at the kitchen table. It is the organic kitsch of a full-wall mural at a seaside trattoria on a very special occasion. It is bursting with bawdy beach bodies who take the same shapes as the stuffed pasta, plump with pleasure.
It is not a lifestyle. It is your one-and-only life. And it is all the lives that have led to yours. The suppertime séance of the many selves who live in every room of your house, made for feasting.
Here at Otea, we believe that our souls need places to rest and play that are both dignified and daring. We do it right. And doing it right, by design, means daring to relish it. We’ll dish it out. And all you have to do is say yes to another helping. Let your palettes and patterns run over and run wild. Fatten up freely on the fritto misto.
Come inside, and stay awhile.
Who is Otea?
Otea Pollera is Cara George’s great aunt. Cara has never met her. But she has always known her.
Otea is the pink cardigan she sent to her sister, Velia—Cara’s grandmother. It is the pigment of party prosciutto that 20-year-old Cara turned from princess pink to punk rock with combat boots and a black turtleneck. It is the shade of vodka sauce lit by Hollywood neon that grown-up Cara orders at Miceli’s to pair perfectly with her briney martini.
The pink cardigan is a little bit too scratchy for the full embrace of skin-on-bare-skin. But it is always with Cara. And it is often on her, anyway.
Otea is the one they left with Aunt Ida and Aunt Oleanda in Villa Basilica, age 3. And she is the one who stayed. They were sure they’d be back for her. But Otea decided to stay. And so she lived every last life of her own.
And one of her lives is Cara’s
And one of them is all yours.
Pronounced Oh-Tay-Ah
Otea is a wallpaper and textile studio committed to a refined, yet cheeky, old-world maximalism.
Otea is a story, not a store.
At Otea, design gets good when it operates on instinct and liberates our lineage. Our aesthetics invite you to let nature take its course: piling your plate higher with patterns, textures, colors, and extra helpings of fritto misto at the seaside trattoria on a very special occasion.
Otea is the promise of pleasure and the taste of it on your tongue.
This is not lifestyle design. This is your one-and-only life. And all of the lives that have led you here.
Go ahead, just enjoy it.
OUR VALUES
Go Ahead, Just Enjoy It
At Otea, we make beautiful things and we offer them up to you. Good design is born from instinct and autonomy. We invite you to seize these shapes and shades and sensations, and to author them into your own art. There are no gatekeepers or tastemakers here. No floor plans to follow. There is only what you feel in your bones and against your skin. Take these designs and make them more yours. Because they are all yours, already.
With Plates Piled High
At Otea, we invite you to embrace maximalism with all your molecules. In its original essence, promiscuity means taking our pleasure and letting it proliferate. Creativity is boundless. Inspiration can flower anywhere, under any conditions. And each form of expression multiples the ways in which love lives through us. More colors, colliding and saturating. More patterns, piling high on your plate. And just when you think you’ve had too much, you taste another. And another.
Liberate Your Lineage
At Otea, we honor provenance, lineage, and inheritance. We are made from all the stories that make us. From both the people we’ve met, and from the people we’ve never met. Each object and image we hold in our hands and our hearts once had other homes. We elevate the origins of our relics, in space and through time. And we invite you to excavate everything that led to your one-and-only existence. You come from many somewheres and someones. And the chorus of voices that created you is worthy of knowing and exalting. Find your many selves in the faces of all those who forged you, and free them.
