The biggest mistake of many modern contemporary fashion designers is their complete detachment from an industrial context. It is an absolutely excellent idea to go and visit an exhibition or an archive to get inspiration, but, up until 30 years ago, designers would also visit factories and there was a strong link between the actual fashion designer and the manufacturer and producer. Innovation and uniqueness can indeed be achieved only when an experimental idea can be developed by a proper manufacturer.
The real strength of the Italian fashion industry was this connection between designers and companies, from yarn manufacturers to textile makers, that helped the country developing a solid fashion system. The industrial history of the country has been destroyed by the process of taking the production abroad, but, luckily, there are still designers such as Roberta Redaelli interested in rediscovering this connection in an active way.
A while back the designer played with architectural inspirations and perspectives, but, for the Autumn Winter 2014-15 collection of her Atelier ECLèCKTICA by Roberta Redaelli line, the designer moved from the industrial past of her home country, stepping back to the early 1900s when the first industries started introducing new production processes. Among them there was also the Cartiera Carcano, a paper mill based in Maslianico, near Como.
Founded in 1870, Carcano produced for over a century high quality paper and cardboard, getting special awards for its products, including a Gold Medal in 1885 at an international event in Melbourne, Australia. The mill closed down in 2000 when it stopped its production, but owners Angelo and Silvio Carcano are now trying to turn the mill with its historical equipment into a museum.
Redaelli employed the Carcano paper mill as inspiration for her collection and as the location for Autumn/Winter campaign, shot by Guido Taroni. Nuts, bolts and parts of the machines appear on the garments (silk, wool and technical textiles are the key materials for this collection) and on the sculpted jackets, characterised by clean and precise lines borrowed at times from menswear and reinterpreted in a feminine way.
Redaelli - who is into bio-medicine and patented a while back a process that allows to produce a textile that has all the characteristics of a knitted piece - controls the entire production of her pieces (garments and accessories). The designer picks the yarns - some of them by Zegna Baruffa, reworked by Redaelli through a personal production process that guarantees comfort and flexibility and eliminates creases even when a piece remains folded for a long time - and makes her knitted designs in her own workshop or in textiles companies around the Como area. The result of her collaboration with artisanal companies aimed at preserving local craftsmanship and traditions is a high quality product. Who said that hard industry couldn't be a wonderful inspiration?
Image credits for this post:
Photographs by Guido Taroni
Make up and hair style by Ilaria Bosco
Styling by Roberta Redaelli
Location Cartiera Carcano
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