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Neil Felipp isn’t abandoning the minaudière, but he is scaling things up, by about 200%. For Révélations 2025, the international biennial of fine craft and creation in Paris, the designer sets his sights with Constellation 1.0, his first-ever sculpture. The three-piece work looks to the celestial bodies, mechanisms in 3D refinement, and love.
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Commissioned under the curatorial direction of Milo Naval, the project nudged Felipp to shape his shellcraft work into something more expansive.
“They asked if it would be possible for me to create a sculpture as a way to push my craft into a new level. And gladly, I took that challenge,” Felipp says, reflecting on the turning point. “My team and I constantly find ways to innovate the traditional craft of shell-inlay and brass-making.”
The challenge was to create something monumental that spoke both to his heritage and his evolving design language. Constellation 1.0 was born out of this push—a three-piece sculpture that reflects the full spectrum of Felipp’s creative and emotional journey, capturing the intricacies of love, connection, and the cosmos.
Emotions in Orbit
Two years ago, Neil Felipp fell in love. It’s a love that could only be imagined as a constellation, a collection of stars he could admire from a distance, but never touch. It was a connection, fleeting and untouchable, that inspired his latest work.
“I wanted to give it form,” Felipp reflects. That desire to bring his abstract emotions into the physical space. Thus, the sculpture nods to the evolution with a touch of heartbreak. Inspired by what the designer describes as “a moment of love”, the sculpture translates an emotional anche into a cosmic ripple, swelling from yearning to full-blown interstellar drama.
The sculpture captures the shifts in his heart from the quiet stirrings of attraction to the full-blown intensity of unrequited affection. It’s a narrative of feeling—an elegy to love that was always just out of reach. “I want to share this story with the audience, as a way to connect to others who might have felt the same way I did,” he adds. “A connection that goes beyond words.”
Shaping the Stars
While the sculpture glows with emotion, its true departure lies in the way it was made. Felipp’s team hand-molded the forms in clay before turning to 3D scanning, scaling the models up by 200%, and speeding up a three-month job into two weeks.
“I resisted using 3D technology because I felt that it was soulless. For some, they would use 3D as a source of inspiration, and I think that’s why I found it to be soulless,” he admits. “But in this case, we started by hand through the shaping of clay and further refined it through 3D technology.”
3D technology didn’t spark the idea, but only simply picked up where the hand left off, refining the form without diluting the craft. Not a shortcut but a smart fix, it let Felipp keep the heart of the craft while sharpening the finish. Essentially, it was a way to protect tradition while making it work smarter.
Stellar Ambitions
The final surface is classic Neil Felipp: gleaming shells, intricate inlay, an obsessive attention to detail. Yellow mother-of-pearl, white mother-of-pearl, and white cabebe shimmer like stardust, with brass sheets cutting sharp constellations into the form.
“Mother-of-pearl has that sunrise glow—it felt right for the cosmic theme,” he says. The shells economic artifacts, export-grade symbols of Filipino craftsmanship that now orbit the realm of fine art.
Representing the Philippines at Révélations is no small thing. “It’s a great honor,” he says. “We hope to redefine ‘Made in the Philippines’ as something that connotes luxury.”
Is this a one-time cosmic fling, or has the designer gone full celestial? “Unlikely,” he says with a grin. “This is only the beginning. We’re entering our sculptural era.” Handbags may still be his signature, but with Constellation 1.0, Neil Felipp has added a new star to his name. That space between him and the stars—the longing that can never reach its destination—is paving the way for a success that no celestial body could ever eclipse.
To learn more, visit the Révélations website and Neil Felipp website
Photos courtesy of NEIL FELLIP
