It’s always annoying to discover that a particular inspiration for a new collection wasn’t actually so well-researched as a designer might have wanted us to believe.
Remember D&G’s A/W 09 opera inspired collection? Well, you would think that someone using vintage opera programmes and images of Maria Callas would have gone through a lengthy research, locking themselves in an archive or a library to try and find images that not many people had ever seen. Yet if you visit Venice’s La Fenice Theatre - and don’t even get inside the theatre, but stop at the bookshop - you will discover that, rather than locking themselves in a library, D&G just passed through the bookshop and maybe stopped at the café.
The theatre bookshop offers indeed a great selection of postcards featuring “vintage” opera programmes, exactly the same ones that D&G printed on their dresses. But that’s not all. The Maria Callas photograph they used on their T-shirts was actually taken from a poster/postcard for a 2007 event that celebrated the 30th anniversary of Maria Callas’s death. Though the postcard was printed by the Associazione Culturale Maria Callas in collaboration with La Fenice Theatre, it doesn’t feature any photographer’s name, which makes me think the design duo used it because there was no copyright involved.
You might argue in D&G’s defence that these are just the, well, most banal inspirations, after all they still had to come up with the puffball skirts and rich brocade dresses, yet once you actually step into the theatre and see the heavy red curtains hanging in the royal box, the golden tassels and the ceiling decorations (sorry for bad quality pic, but I was in a hurry as you're actually not allowed to take photographs in the theatre…), you understand that there wasn’t really an extremely great amount of work behind this collection.
Just a very quick history of the theatre, since this is meant to be a blog about art, fashion and style: the tenders for the Gran Teatro La Fenice were published in 1789, they called Italian and foreign architects to do a project for a new theatre that was supposed to be "most pleasing to the eyes and ears of the spectators...”. The winning tender was architect Giannantonio Selva’s and the works started in 1790. The theatre officially opened in May 1792 with Paisiello’s “I Giuochi d’Agrigento”, with a libretto by Alessandro Pepoli.
A fire caused by faulty heaters badly damaged the building in December 1836, and after a first restoration project, the theatre reopened a year later. The theatre burnt down for a second time in 1996, opera lovers mourned the loss of one of the most beautiful Italian theatres, yet from the sorrow of losing such a marvellous place came the will to rebuild it following the motto that had allowed the rebuilding of St Mark’s bell tower, “as and where it stood”. Works started in 2001 and finished in 2004 and, in November of the same year, the theatre reopened with Verdi’s La Traviata.
If you like opera and opera-inspired clothes and accessories, but aren’t (understandably) keen on spending any money on the new D&G collection, get some curtain tassels and try to do something original with them by applying them on old skirts, tops and jackets, using them as belts or integrating them in your hairstyle.
It’s easy to find curtain tassels in many haberdashery shops, yet if you happen to be in Italy, you will find it’s quite common to find them even on market stalls that sell fabrics, buttons and yarns. It’s better to buy the tassels with rope tiebacks as the latter allow you to wrap the rope easily around your hair or just use it as a belt. If you’re using them for your hair remember to get the tassels in colours that contrast with the colour of your hairs to create striking effects. The price varies according to the tassel dimensions, but it usually goes from 3-5 Euros (for two small tassels) on.
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