I started this week with a couple of architecture-inspired posts and I think it would be perfect to close it with at least another architectural post.
The starting point for today's post is the Church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli also known as Church of the Miracles, in Venice.
Located in the northern Cannaregio section of Venice, the church takes its name after a painting of the Virgin Mary from the 15th century that hung on the corner of a building where a merchant lived.
The painting was considered as miraculous this is why the local people decided to build a church in honour of the Virgin Mary in this area.
It took eight years to architect Pietro Lombardo and his sons to build this church that was finished in the late 1480s.
The church is one of the first examples of Renaissance architecture in Venice and has a rather peculiar location: it has a rectangular shape with one side overlooking a square, two facing a few narrow lanes and the left side that plunges into the canal.
What I like about the structure of the church is its semicircular facade covered in polychromatic marble decorations with pink, grey and white nuances prevailing and giving the impression the church was made of soft skin and solid rock.
I really like the barrel vaulted ceiling of this church and, though they say its exterior reminds of Lombardo's tombs (in fact some critics and historians say this church actually looks like an oversized tomb…), its shape fascinates me quite a bit, especially when I think about applying it to fashion design and try to imagine which fabrics, motifs and decorations would create the best sculptural and architectural effects.
There are actually two Spring/Summer 2010 collections that can be used to explore the more sculptural side of the bubble shape, one is Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi's, the other is Gianfranco Ferré's (also designed by the Aquilano/Rimondi team).
Though maybe too sumptuously opulent and extremely rich when it came to the intensely elaborate brocade and flowery fabrics characterised by splashes of silver and gold, Aquilano-Rimondi's collection also featured a few voluminous shirts with oversized soft ribbons matched with bubble skirts and bustier dresses that bubbled up around the waist.
Aquilano-Rimondi went down the same route in their third collection for Ferré, though in this case they opted for equally luxurious yet less elaborate fabrics, slightly toning down their architectural influences by employing lighter and more ethereal fabrics and using pleats and folds to achieve balance, practicality, functionality and movement.
Yet many designs – from the skirts to the bustier dresses and even jodhpurs or jackets – bubbled up around the hip area, creating at times rigid, at times voluminously soft and loose structures that swirled around the body.
The two designers seemed to manipulate the conventional proportions of bubble-like garments, adding unconventional details and extra skins and wings, creating an effortlessly refined look.
I have been on an architectural binge for this week, so I will let this thread rest for a while, though I can't really promise I won't somehow resurrect it before the year ends…
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