Who's Where: Jason Castriota opens own design consultancy

Former Bertone and Pininfarina designer, Jason Castriota, has opened his own design consultancy based in New York and Turin. CDN recently caught up with Castriota - who is currently in New York - and discovered he's already working on a series of projects, despite having not yet officially launched the company.

Castriota told us that it had always been his "dream to have my own consultancy in New York", yet what's clearly pleasing him most is the volume of work he's already accrued, without officially launching the firm.

"Right now we're in Beta launch - so we don't even have a website!" Castriota declared. "We thought we were going to spend more time getting our ‘ducks in a row', but just through word of mouth people realized that I was on my own - so we started doing business development without it! We'll hopefully go live at the end of April."

Castriota refused to be drawn on speculation that he will be penning future Shelby Supercars (SSC), or that they could wear his name, but he confirmed that the firm is already working on two automotive projects. The studio's workload won't be constrained to automotive design however - Castriota's desire is to have a varied portfolio of work and clients. To this end he confirmed that the small team of five were already working on some furniture designs, a sneaker for a boutique shoe manufacturer and a water bottle for drinks company PureNY - which is likely to be the new studio's first official output.

A native New Yorker, Castriota is obviously relishing the prospect of running a design firm in his home city, "New York is special, it has a very unique vibe and atmosphere, and it has such an energy - it's a creative energy, but not only that, there's an overall energy here - New Yorkers are intense, and ambitious".

He intends to keep one foot in Italy though, saying that he's currently splitting his time between the two places on about a 70/30 basis. "It's interesting to toggle back and forth between old world and new world - and it's definitely refreshing my perspective on things."

Watch this space for a full interview with Jason Castriota in the coming months...

By Joe Simpson