A DAY AT THE MUSEUM
The creative process is not linear but transversal. Nothing new there, but throughout that process I often find myself thinking what my sources of inspiration are (a term over-used and even abused in our industry).
Of course, creativity is a necessity for people like me who work in fashion (though it isn't enough on its own to make a career out of it!) because it is the way to eliminate the distinctions between the various art forms and bring the concept of creativity to the drive I (and each person) feels to find a source of inspiration in everything!
It might be the bold colours in a Frida Kahlo portrait or an overwhelming photograph by someone like Brassaï or a visit to the Venice Biennale to see Vezzoli's videos - anything can be a basis for experimentation.
But creative inspiration has to lead to a subtler process than that unleashed by pure imagination. As Bruno Munari said, there must be a “logical basis in addition to those values that are required to culminate in a good product (a suit, a jacket, an entire collection in my case), in which materials, economic matters, functionality and aesthetics are taken into account”.
This is where the courage to experiment comes in. To know how to use art or any other artistic expression, from photography to graffiti, as a driving element in the process of designing and building something… because things don't happen “just like that”.
The fast-changing approach to fashion, new developments in construction, materials and forms have changed the way in which clothes are perceived. Clothes no longer have to be an affirmation of radical extremism (as occurred in the eighties); these days we need reassurance and we like our clothes to chime with our inner being.
Clothes have to show who we really are. And art can be very helpful that way!
