Arrivederci, Roma Good bye, au revoir…” – Renato Rascel, Arrivederci Roma

Every time I say goodbye to Rome I feel a lump in my throat. The Eternal City has the power to insinuate in me a sense of sweet nostalgia, just as the old hit by the histrionic Renato Rascel. After all, it is here that I lived two of the best years of my life. However, this year that subdued sorrow quickly made way for a congenial satisfaction. Satisfaction in understanding that the Italian political capital city, far from the spotlight of the coolest Milan, is going through a moment of growing creative ferment: even and above all in fashion.

In the last edition of AltaRoma, with pleasure, and a certain interest, I witnessed the show by young talents from the Accademia di Costume & Moda. Forge of genius, today it is to be considered an outsider reference point within the international panorama.

I have identified three names, the ones that most impressed me, and asked them the usual three questions. This is what they answered…

 

FEDERICA POLLI

 

Who are you?

After getting my scientific high school diploma, I did not know which path to take, but the fashion world had always been a fascinating reality for me. So, without having a precise plan, I enrolled in the Accademia di Costume & Moda in Rome. I had never thought it would have become my job one day.
I have never had permanent passions but today I can say that joining the Academy was one of the rightest decisions I’ve ever taken, it’s the only thing I am not yet tired of and I think it will never tire me because it is thanks to this path that I’m going on in knowing myself.
I can say that I have found the passion in my life.

 

Tell us about your collection.

The MIRROR collection is inspired by the jazz music world, namely the jazz fusion, a genre that developed around the 70s, choosing Herbie Hancock’s music as a soundtrack to describe the psychedelic atmosphere in which we are living: the tradition of the American clubs, the comfortable velvet armchairs, the handfuls of stools wrapped in soft light, the cocktails that spread their liqueur aftertaste and the blinding intrusiveness of neon signs. These were the reasons for the development of the collection.

Innovation and experimentation are the basis of this project, so we offer accessories made by a mix of materials: hammered velvets, printed paint with a wavy pattern and a silver material (coagulated with fibers) which is the dominant note, all crowned by handmade shades.

To further enhance the image of the accessory, a fresh and modern type of clothing was chosen, with low-waist trousers, jersey t-shirts, and velvet shirts, re-proposing the same type of nuance. Thus we can see the figure of a man “stretched up, out of the mind”, completely absorbed by the spatial atmosphere that insinuates itself in his daily life.

 

The most representative item?

The iconic piece in the collection is “The big marsupio”: two bags joined together, one larger, made entirely by gray hammered velvet that is blended from the blue to the black, and the other, smaller, made by two types of leather (paints) of different colors, but with the same print motif (waves).

(Wave-printed leather kindly supplied by the Russo Di Casandrino Company).

 

ORIANA PASTORE

Who are you?

My name is Oriana Pastore, I’m 23 and I’m from Salerno. I am a very curious and highly pragmatic person. I love culture in its most varied forms: I like music, cinema, and theater, literature, dance, art, and fashion, of course. To me, fashion has always represented a strong passion, a call, something I cannot do without. A universe in which I can fully release my creativity and immediately find it again afterward in an absolutely tangible way, with a shape, a color, a volume, a tactic. I think fashion is one of the most complete forms of art, which allows us to wear the artwork itself, and furthermore, it lives of a profound sensibility: it not only represents creative freedom but through it, it manages to represent and understand a specific era, a society. It is a way of living, of thinking, of being linked to what surrounds us, and for this reason, fashion can only be changeable and fleeting. This spasmodic love for fashion has grown over the years, while knowing it, coming into contact with it and challenging it. A key role in this trip of mine undoubtedly is the one played by Accademia di Costume & Moda in Rome, a magical place populated by fantastic people that I like to define as a “family”. During the years in the Academy, I had the opportunity to better understand what my skills, my interests, my natural artistic inclinations were and at the end of this path, I was lucky enough to be able to present my collection on the runway: Panton’s Vision.

 

Tell us about your collection.

Panton’s Vision is a tribute to the world of the interior design, namely to the work by the Danish designer Verner Panton who operated in the late 60s and throughout the first decade of 70s. Mine is a collection entirely playing on contrasts: soft materials marry geometrical shapes and constructions; at the same time, shiny materials, like paint, marry opaque materials, all combined with a playful and fun use of colors that indeed, bright and vivid as they are, recall the entire pop setting of those years. Then, everything goes well with graphics and optical patterns both in the accessory and in the clothing (above all in the nice and cheerful bombers). The color, moreover, embraces all the geometry. The triangles and the diagonals become distinctive signs both for the bags and for the clothing, while on the top of the shoes there are circular elements that take on both decorative and functional value. All this creates an interesting stylistically composition.

 

The most representative item?

The male imaginary is that of a very young man, playful, funny and very modern, who does not renounce his egocentricity. The trolley, a piece of the collection inspired by the construction of the common shopping carts, becomes the element that best sums up and describes the playful background of the entire collection, but also the iconographic character of the man himself.

 

 

TOMMASO AMBROSCA

Who are you?

My name is Tommaso Ambrosca and I am a 22 years old, aspiring designer. My desire to get closer to the world of fashion comes from the desire to combine my creative sensibility with the great Made in Italy resource, as I am a son of the Neapolitan culture that can really boast of having a Neapolitan tailoring linked to men’s clothing. Thanks to the Accademia di Costume & Moda, I was able to refine and enhance my skills so that I could create my own style.

 

Tell us about your collection.

My Kyudo is the name of my male collection that comes from the mixture of opposing worlds such as the subcultures – characterized by violence, aggression, and disorder in their style linked to the iconic items of these groups and the romanticism deriving from Japan, namely from the ancient Japanese archery, the Kyudo. These opposing worlds are joined in the works of the Russian designer Oleg Soroko, from which the jacquard fabrics used in the collection take their inspiration.

 

The most representative item?

The most iconic piece in my collection is the studded jacket that in this case is not made of leather, as the iconic piece used by Rocker, but “softened” by a jacquard fabric made in one of the best companies in Como, Alesilk, which represents the top in Italy and in the world in the field of the manufacturing textile sector.

Art Direction & Photography: Davide Musto
MUAH: Kristel Zevini
Models: Edoardo Marrocco @Beyond Models & Luigi Anzolin
Location: Effetti Visivi Studio – Roma
Designers: Federica Polli, Oriana Pastore, Tommaso Abrosca