Lladro, luxury brand: Timeless art for changing times

Even as you fret about the rising temperatures in the city, a chat with Rosa Lladro, the president of Lladro, can put you at ease and get you to realise that all is probably not all that bad in Bangalore.

“We got stuck in a traffic jam but I didn’t mind waiting because of all the greenery I saw,” she says with a grin, even as she makes a face thinking of the traffic jams back home at Valencia, Spain.

Rosa was in Bangalore to unveil the limited edition Goddess Lakshmi statue that comes in succession after their Rama and Sita, Radha Krishna and a series of four Ganesha sculptures, all crafted by her team back in Spain.

For us, this focus on Indian deities is pleasantly surprising and gratifying on some level. “The first motive is that the Indian Gods are very appealing to us. We find them beautiful and this is the best way for us to learn and understand the Indian culture,” explains Rosa even as she adds, “We find a lot of similarities between Indian and Spanish cultures. And one of the commonalities is this practice of giving a human-like representation to our Gods. We understand that as we are equally religious.”

About the studio and her team gets Rosa a bit excited. “We have 12 sculptors and three designers who work in house. They do all the creative ideating and sculpting for Lladro,” informs Rosa before she gets commenting about her involvement, given that she is a second generation Lladro.

Her father, Juan Lladro, is credited with starting the company. “We visit the sculptors everyday. We give them our opinions and approve the designs.  At present, we have all young sculptors, not older than 40 working for us. They are all young and that factor is seeping into our ethos. That is why you will see a lot of our recent works are young in terms of the themes they are based on.”

Started in 1950, the 62-year-old brand has a newer, younger audience now. Rosa agrees, saying, “We have a new audience out there that speaks a new language but at its heart, the theme (of what the audience likes) remains the same.

We continue to create and recreate beautiful things like the statue of a mother and child, for instance, because people will continue to feel the same about positive emotions like love forever.”

While on the topic of the necessity to change with the times, Rosa says, “It is a challenge because you have to know what trends to follow and more importantly, you need to ‘accept’ that you need to change with the times else you will stagnate. My father and his brothers were attuned to their times and communicated in that language, which explains their success.”

Tell her about how there are collectors who regard Lladro works primarily as investments and Rosa avers, “I wouldn’t say it’s an investment. Yes, the pieces have value but I’d like to believe that people buy Lladro sculptures because they talk to your heart when you look at them.”

Getting back to the Indian Gods series, Rosa informs, “We are working on Goddess Saraswati now any help to make the piece look authentic is always welcome!”

Before winding up the interview, we quiz Rosa about a lasting  advice she received from her father and she fondly reminisces, “When I was learning to drive, my father would always tell me to ‘look far ahead while on the road’. I remember this advice often because it applies to life too. When you always look too close, you limit yourselves to day-to-day living and lead a closed life. I’ll say, always look at life with a longer perspective, because if you don’t see far, you will be lost.” Good food for thought that.