Carta e Costura and Isabella Tonchi @ Villa Vittoria |

Walking around Florence's Villa Vittoria last week and having a look at the pre-collections of a group of British designers invited for the first time to meet the Italian buyers, I found two interesting Italian designers, Carta e Costura and Isabella Tonchi.

The former is the brainchild of Alessandra Carta, a Milanese fashion and costume designer. Carta studied stage design at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Milan and first started working as a theatre and cinema costume designer (one of the few Italian contemporary fashion designers I have heard of who comes from such and interesting background). In 2006 she decided to focus on fashion and launched her own brand.

From the S/S 09 season, designer Stefano Fornari joined Alessandra.
Carta e Costura’s creations combine urban inspirations and haute couture and have just that little bit of theatricality that we all need in our lives.

The collection I had the chance of previewing at Villa Vittoria was quite interesting: it was almost entirely based on two colours, white/ivory, and featured dresses, jackets, skirt suits and trench coats all characterised by a clean cut.

I particularly liked a very simple white cotton one-shoulder dress in which the fabric was pleated and draped as if it were paper, creating wave-like motifs.

I wasn’t allowed to take pics of Isabella Tonchi’s new collection, but I found it disquieting interesting.

It was based on the memento mori theme and featured prints of dancing skeletons on linen dresses and tops. It was Baroque yet urban and a little bit ironic.

Isabella Tonchi first worked at Fiorucci and in the 90s she designed also for Miu Miu. I’m posting here a pic of a detail of a black and white striped (almost optical) dress from Tonchi’s A/W 08-09 collection. I love the way the bi-coloured puffball sleeves seem to be constructed using a sort of "stratification" technique.