Incalmi has long been engaged in a research project on fire enamel on copper, a decorative technique made great by masters such as Ettore Sottsass and Gio Ponti. As simple to describe as it is complex to achieve, it involves subjecting a copper object covered in glassy powders to high-temperature firing to make it acquire unexpected colors and brilliance. The complexity lies in the unpredictability of the result, due both to the use of fire-unpredictable by nature-and to the fact that knowledge of this technique in the field of object making has been almost completely lost, kept alive only by a few enthusiasts.

In the production of enameled copper objects, therefore, one can only advance by trial and error, amid mistakes, improvisations, and a few surprises. As Annalisa Rosso writes in a volume published on the occasion of the exhibition Doppia Firma, in 2022: "Chronometer in hand, (literally, because a few fractions of a second make a difference in the reactions of a piece of copper covered in glassy powders cooked in a kiln at over 850°), designers and craftsmen together reinvented the process, advancing by empirical trials."

Empirical trials on which Incalmi has been working for some time, drawing inspiration both from the work of Italian Paolo De Poli, a Paduan craftsman who collaborated with Gio Ponti in the 1950s, and from Jean Goulden, a brilliant French author who conducted a research on bronze and silver enameling in the 1930s. It was Goulden who first spoke of the fragility of this "rebellious and daunting" technique, of the need to conquer it step by step, of the thin margin that runs between failure and success. And if the French school specialized in one-of-a-kind, luxurious and exclusive pieces, Incalmi's contemporary research aims to industrialize the process, with the goal of producing high-end pieces that are replicable in size and color, where uniqueness comes from craftsmanship.