Times Insider
For T Magazine, Kate Guadagnino set out to identify the many people involved in creating a single object or artistic work, including a luxury handbag, a performance piece, a pizza and more.
The price tag on a particular Bottega Veneta leather bag is eye-popping: $15,000.
But when you consider the number of people (more than 30), the amount of time (more than a year) and all the fair and exhibition visits (dozens) behind the creation of the bag, “it’s easier to accept it being expensive,” said Kate Guadagnino, a contributing writer for T: The New York Times Style Magazine.
Ms. Guadagnino recently spent about two months chronicling the resource- and labor-intensive processes to make five objects or artistic works, including a plant-based chair, a nine-hour stage performance and a potato pizza. The resulting project, which was published online last week, appears in T Magazine this Sunday.
Like the items whose production Ms. Guadagnino documented, the series also required a team effort: It took more than 20 editors, researchers, photographers and others over three months to produce. Nick Haramis, an editor at large at T Magazine who spearheaded the project, said that the five items were whittled down from 47 initial ideas.
“The ones that were most compelling were either exceptionally intricate — like the ‘Spirited Away’ puppets — or seemingly simple, like Dan Barber’s slice of pizza,” he said. “The goal was that by including those extremes we might land on something unexpected and fun.”
In an interview, Ms. Guadagnino reflected on what she learned from her reporting and how it changed the way she thinks about pricing. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
You interviewed 18 people for this project. With so many people involved in the production of these items and works, where did you begin?
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