A Project That Celebrates Collaboration and Cooperation

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?

Finding the person in charge of the production of an item or work was always pretty easy. It was trickier determining all the other people involved. That’s where the surprises were. Every time I thought I had a handle on a core group of people, another name would be thrown out. It just emphasized the reason we were doing the project: There are so many people involved in making all of these things!

Which item or work required more team members than you expected?

The potato pizza. Even though I knew that Dan Barber, the chef of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, takes a holistic approach when it comes to food, the story emphasized the people behind the potato and the restaurant dish. That was a conscious choice, but eventually we were forced to think about the other ingredients and marvel at how much larger that group photograph could have been. Not pictured are the cheese makers, clam diggers and the developers behind a hybrid vegetable known as Sweet Garleek.

Had you ever done an assignment like this before?

I write about art often, so I interview a lot of artists and curators, but this allowed me to go broader — I had never spoken with a potato breeder, or someone who programs robots before. It forced me to look at who else is involved and to have conversations that were unlike others I’d had.

What were some of your greatest reporting challenges?

It was the sort of story where the reporting could have gone on forever — one call would lead to the next, and you could keep going down the line and talk to more and more people. So, in that sense, I had to limit myself. Every time I thought I had a handle on the process of making something, I would have another call, and that would reshape my sense of what the story was, who did what and how the item came to be.

I also think that when artists make their work, they are in it, and it can be hard to go back and explain how it happened, especially when there are a lot of players and steps. In my reporting, I was conscious of using the word “then” a lot — there were just so many steps; it was like when a young kid tells a story: “And then … and then … and then …”

What was the most surprising part of your reporting?

I didn’t expect to hear about quite so many false starts, how things were made and then unmade on the way to the final product. It’s just a reminder of the nature of the process and process-based work: that it’s never a straight line. I tried to hint at that without getting too bogged down in what didn’t happen.

Does the Bottega Veneta bag seem like a bargain now?

It’s part of a much larger discussion about what we’re willing and able to pay for. If you’re someone who values artistry and can afford it, why not support this sort of work?