Once Upon a Graphic Time: The Colourful Fable of Giuseppe Picone @ Milan Design Week |

In many ways Milan Design Week is even more chaotic than the local celebration of fashion since there are both official and side events happening a bit all over the city. Quite often, though, the less known exhibitions and design events end up being the best ones or the most inspiring. One of them for example is a small exhibition (part of the “Porta Venezia In Design” cycle of events that will also be taking place this week); the event is entitled “Looking Forward” and celebrates Giuseppe Picone in his Milan-based studio.

Borm in Naples in 1926, Picone worked in a glass-workshop owned by his family and mainly designedg plates. He exhibited his ceramic pieces with Gio Ponti at the Triennale di Milano museum in 1954 (his designs also appeared in the same year on the magazine Domus, and Adriano Olivetti invited him to participate in the Freedom Movement).

In 1958 he met in Capri Vogue photographer Regina Relang: she used to collect his ceramic pieces and inspired him to start working with fabrics, transferring the graphic elements of his works (imagine a sort of Marimekko-meets-a Mediterranean fantasy and you get an idea) – on garments. Picone moved therefore to Rome where he opened a studio-cum-workshop that became a meeting point for many of the creative minds populating the Italian city in those years.

Picone worked in Rome as a fashion designer and ceramic artist: he collaborated with brands such as Cole of California and Krizia and produced high quality pieces; his creations were exhibited in the New York shop windows of Saks, Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale as in other important stores in America, Canada and Brazil.

In the 70’s, while producing high-fashion garments in silk, he also worked with Biki Japan, producing around 15,000 pieces a year for the group, in collaboration with his wife Dominique Giroud, who became the stylist of the “Studio Picone”: together they designed bags, shoes, spectacles, watches and lots of other accessories, which were very successful.

Throughout the years Picone also created graphic motifs printed on fabric and hundreds of designs for leading Japanese companies. In the ’80s Picone still had his fabric printing workshop, store and showroom in Rome, but in the following decade he returned to ceramic and mainly worked on organising exhibitions while keeping on drawing.

One of the most successful characters Picone created was a stylised cartoonish man with a funny little hat that, rechristened by many the “pretino” (little priest), became his logo and trademark signature. Picone’s designs were also exhibited in Italy and abroad, but he remained an undervalued and marginal note in the history of Italian fashion because he preserved his freedom and independence in an industry that gradually became more interested in finance rather than creativity.

Picone died in 2008, but the Studio Picone Roma has been relaunched by his wife Dominique Giroud, his stepdaughter Sophie Morichi and his granddaughter Martina Bersani who, a few years ago, published a book of his iconic graphic motifs (see youtube video embedded in this post) to reintroduce new generations to Picone’s joyful style and colours. The team has also recreated a series of ceramic pieces inspired by Picone’s little priest and reissued his fabrics in bold and bright colours, coming up with a collection of garments as well.

Located in the Milanese showroom of Studio Picone (Via Nino Bixio, 27), “Looking Foward” features a wide range of inspiring ceramic objects, sculptures and fabrics in wonderful colours that prove there is still a lot to learn from Picone.

Whenever somebody asked him if he was an artist, a ceramist or a fashion designer Picone would indeed smile without providing a final answer, hinting in this way at the fact that he was a creative mind who simply loved working on a variety of objects and across different fields, using colours and materials as the basic elements of his own personal language that formed a visual narrative and recounted his colourful fable. Looks like Picone’s colours and patterns but also his humility could be great inspirations for many artists and fashion designers out there.