A transparent creature suspended between glass

Simone Crestani Glassoctopus

A transparent creature suspended between glass and time

In Glassoctopus, Simone Crestani transforms transparent glass into a miniature underwater vision. Rising just 3.5 millimetres above a hand-guilloché gold dial coated in deep blue, the octopus appears to float within an imaginary nocturnal ocean.

The sculpture required an entirely new technique. Tiny glass rods were melted and shaped piece by piece with tungsten tools, while every tentacle and sucker had to be constructed progressively to prevent the delicate glass threads from collapsing.

The development lasted more than a year, beginning with the first prototypes in spring 2025.

Interview

What was the most unexpected challenge in this project?

Without doubt, the scale of the project.

In glassmaking, one usually thinks in centimetres, sometimes even in monumental volumes, whereas here everything had to be controlled to the tenth of a millimetre.

Although I had previously created minute glass details, including bees adorning a Venetian-style goblet presented at a previous edition of Homo Faber, nothing had approached the microscopic scale required for this dial.

This forced me to completely rethink my technique and adapt all my tools to ensure that every detail remained readable and alive within the dimensions of the dial, while still giving the octopus a sculptural presence and a sense of movement, as if floating underwater.

What does this project represent for you personally?

This project constitutes a real turning point in my work because it forced me to develop a new technique that I had never used in twenty-five years of working with glass.

It opened a new perspective in my practice and made me realise that I can now apply this knowledge to create even smaller, more intricate elements in future works.

I am proud to have completed it because making something so small ultimately proved as demanding as creating something monumental, which is typically considered the greatest challenge for a glassmaker.

About Simone Crestani

Italian glass artist Simone Crestani began working with glass at a young age, often remarking that it was the material that chose him.

Renowned for his poetic sculptures in transparent glass, Crestani explores the contrasting nature of the material simultaneously fragile and resistant while preserving its transparent essence.

Deeply inspired by vegetal and marine worlds, he creates sculptural objects that reveal transparency through light and precision of contour.

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Patricia Holdener 

Editor-In-Chief

Luxe Mgazine Switzerland 

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