52nd edition

The detachment of previous aesthetic codes that occurred some years ago brought to success particularly in textile-fashion world (but not exclusively: let’s also think about some design exploit of avant-garde industrial design) quite a few products with a confused and chaotic aesthetic which reflects the chaos typical of all ages where contradictory drives overlap and coexist as well as the relativism typical of a multiculturalism that is often misunderstood.

Within this framework, we have seen and we continue to see phenomena which can seem to be extreme and not always accepted from all people as “aesthetic”. The cult of the body and the attention to naturalism, for instance, can be at the basis of phenomena (in the way they are currently carried out) as certain corporal operations as tattoos or some hairstyles or the inclination to exhibiting bodies’ parts close to nakedness and that can be also reconnected to ancestral practices aiming at melting or looking for symbiosis of the Human’ with the animality and, more in general, with mother nature.
Apparently words like “aesthetics” and “beauty” are becoming more and more meaningless may be we should now elaborate the concept of “harmony”.

We try to enhance these assumption dedicating these product development proposals to the theme of “METAMORPHOSIS”, in order to highlight the idea of permeation and interaction between beings and things.
We could also talk about “empathy” or about “shared ethos” to represent the detachment from a past marked by the separation between the human being and his environment towards a modernity and a future that, on the other hand, change direction toward the ecosophy experienced as foundations (or hope, or aspiration as you prefer) for a real harmony of humanity which begins to feel that the eco-colonialist model is reaching the last stop.
For some time, the ongoing change has been approaching a critical point and this is just a further proof that the era in which we are living in it is not a changing era but, as evidenced by several parties, an era, a pace and a parameter’s change.

Therefore, it becomes necessary to go beyond those frames of mind that brought us to envisage the economic recovery just as consequence of pure and simple consumption’s recovery focusing instead on a concept that is rather more complex corresponding to the one of diversification of sources and processes as well as the one of results to achieve and the consequent application methods. One should then act “with” and not “against” and consider all the possible business alternatives that this implies.

At the stake is also the short perspective, key pillar of modern “doing”, as well as the dominating action on the nature that represented the horizon of an existence considered “successful”, while another thought is gradually strengthening: the one mentioned before dealing with empathy and the merger of the human with the environment without any eco-colonialist aspect.

We end up with the inscription on the statue of Isis, the Egyptian goddess of Earth:

“I AM ALL THAT HAS BEEN AND IS AND SHALL BE; AND NO MORTAL HAS EVER LIFTED MY MANTLE.”

Qualities

In view of this assumption, we have worked on images, concepts and proposals which represent mergers between human and non-human presences of this planet. The melting of these components produced metamorphic images suspended in the instant of mutation and within the undefined state typical of any change with all the characteristics which mark them out: fluidity, shape’s mutation, chromatic variation, irregular and undefined design, surfaces that from opaque become reflecting and conversely, from solid to fluid, from the matter to the transparency.

Many different textile materials are involved and their combinations aim at creating “moving” or crinkly surfaces where even warp patterns are preferably in union with presence of elastomers or elements that anyway can somehow slightly “distort” the recurring regular repeats.

It is confirmed the decreasing importance of the yarn dyed patterns being too flat and static expressing just graphic effects and it is confirmed the still important presence of jacquard types and printed or overprinted types also combining different techniques as well as the presence of embroideries on plain and on fancy fabrics.

The metallic and pearlescent aspects are important but provided that they are dosed with elegance both colourwise and in their degree of sheen. There are many types with transparencies and iridescences. This basic non-definition doesn’t exclude that sometimes even the materials while realising are considered, and this instant of “materialisation” is represented by some types nearly rustic and quite rough.

The orientation is then toward the great “solid” classics in different forms based on medium-big counts of natural cellulosic fibre but also with rustic wools for winter ready market.

Hand effects resulting from embellishment are of the utmost importance on plains and false plains for a more classic market too.

The whole presentation is articulated in four parts merged in one another and they are intentionally not marked by separations (nevertheless easily recognizable along the passage’s phases): animals, vegetables, minerals, temporal.