While I’m publishing this post I’m in Milan for the must-see event of the year that the entire world envies us. No, it is not the Fashion Week, but the Salone del Mobile. Given that I’ll be busy for the whole week in a “haven of creative ideas” between art, design and architecture, I decided to dedicate this post to Luisa Tratzi, the shoe designer I met during Milan Fashion Week, whose style and design are strongly influenced by the edgy shapes of contemporary architecture.

I’m pretty sure that Vincent Billeci would have been a worthy protégé of the Florio family, the enlightened Sicilian entrepreneurs who launched Palermo as cultural capital at international level during the Belle Epoque. I can imagine him next to the most important Palermitan Art Nouveau representative artists such as Ernesto Basile and Ettore De Maria Von Bergler, while he drapes the high tech fabrics of his autumn-winter 2014 collection on the curvy body of Donna Franca Florio.    

Sea, jellyfish, fishermen’s nets and a legendary island are the main inspirations for the new VINCENT spring summer 2014 collection by Vincenzo Billeci, the young Sicilian fashion designer who retrieves the traditions of his native place with a contemporary twist.    

T-shirt: T shape garment made with the body and sleeves. It is normally associated with short sleeves, a round neck line, and no collar.  Well, now cancel this definition and imagine a journey in Japan. Smell the cherry blossoms’ scent, let yourselves be enthralled by the colors of ukiyo-e prints and by the charm of origami which mimic the harmony of nature. Then, think to go in Italy, in one of the Neapolitan atelier that has marked the history of Italian tailoring, while you are touching the finest Italian fabrics ready to be assembled on the mannequin. Ok. That’s it!…

On May 3rd, spring has arrived in Florence. No, there is no reference to the climate, but only to the creative ferment that has blossomed at Le Printemps – A Spring Liturgy, the event in which the FAST students (School of Fashion Accessory Studies and Technology) presented a sort of debate/meeting between their collections with those of three guest designers: Mazzanti piume, Florentine company specialized in producing handmade fashion creations with feathers since 1935; Jewelry Green, the jewelery brand of Clelia Stincheddu and Giulietta Piccioli; and Eleonora Bruno, a talented emerging hat designer.    

Vincent Billeci, emerging fashion designer from the South of Italy, has just released his new collection inspired to the imaginary journey across Sicily started with the Spring/Summer2013. In the Vincent Fall Winter 2013/14 collection he shows “his” personal Sicily, made of popular traditions carved in the childhood memories, such as ‘u fistinu ‘ra Santuzza (Santa Rosalia feast) that enlive the streets of Palermo with the parade float and the decorative lights.    

I’m sure that many of you remember Mario Chiarella, the emerging designer I met in September (during the Milan fashion week) who surprised me with his total white collection made of sculpture silhouettes and origami applique. Well, forget all that “celestial” white because the new Mario Chiarella Fall Winter 2013 collection is dedicated to a gritty, glam, sexy, but refined woman.        

Even this year Sanremo (the most important Italian music festival) has come to an end. From February 12th, the 63rd edition glued an average of 11,936,000 viewers to their tv-screens for five evenings, proving that still exist Italian “thinking people”. Yes, I mean intelligent and reasonable people because this was a very unusual festival, influenced by cultural, political and social references, and characterized by an informal and humorous show’s host, without the typical platitudes of the national networks.     Fabio Fazio in Costume National,  Luciana Littizzetto in Aquilano.Rimondi – Sanremo 2013     In this brief post I’d like…