While the Milanese menswear runways were on, the city mayor inaugurated a street - via Gesù - set to become a bit like Savile Row, thanks to its men's stores, including Brioni, Kiton, De Luca Sartoria and Zilli among the others, plus three new additions, Caruso, Rubinacci and Luciano Barbera.
Yet fashionistas who are more interested in womenswear and photo opportunities will be happier to hear that, from 24th February till January 2016, not far from via Gesù, and around the area between via Montenapoleone and via Sant'Andrea, they will find a bit of an open air art and fashion "exhibition".
Entitled "Tombini Art", the event consists in 24 hand-painted manholes designed by famous maisons - Giorgio Armani, Valentino, Etro, Missoni, Moschino, Prada, Trussardi, Versace, DSquared, Iceberg, Brunello Cucinelli, Hogan, Alberta Ferretti, Salvatore Ferragamo, Emilio Pucci, Ermenegildo Zegna, Giuseppe Zanotti, Just Cavalli, Larusmiani, Laura Biagiotti, Costume National, 10 Corso Como, plus two young students from the Marangoni Institute in Milan (Alessandro Garofolo and Santi).
This is not the first edition of the Tombini Art event: in the past, organisers had actually asked Italian and international street artists to decorate these urban features.
The event is organised in collaboration with the Italian Chamber of Fashion and is promoted by Metroweb, a Lombardy-based company owner of the largest optical fibre network in Europe.
The good thing about this event is that it will somehow celebrate the Expo 2015: the manholes will indeed remain installed in the fashionable streets (in front of the corresponding shops of each participating maison) throughout the period of time the Expo will be on. Besides, next January, the pieces will be auctioned at Christie's and the proceeds will be donated to Oxfam Italia (Civil Society Participant of this years' World's Fair). Inspired by the Expo theme - "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life" - the charity will use the funds to tackle issues such as access to primary resources (including water, but also education) in several countries.
The bizarre thing about the manhole art event is that, though the theme was art and fashion, some of the pieces look lazily put together, as if they were made by an intern. Giorgio Armani went for example for his logo traced in white dots hinting at water drops; Moschino used a rave relic, the smile, but in a patriotic tri-coloured version, while Laura Biagiotti opted for Giacomo Balla for no particular reason. The intern at Iceberg must have instead been fascinated as a child by Kotetsu Jeeg and Mazinger Z, otherwise we wouldn't be able to explain the two famous robots appearing on the manholes.
The choice of 10 Corso Como was also rather dubious. This is a trendy avant-garde boutique and not a proper maison (they could have asked also La Rinascente to take part in the event then...), but they obviously picked it to secure the allegiance of Vogue Italia's editor Franca Sozzani via the boutique owner and editor's sister, Carla.
In an official press release, the head of the Italian Chamber of Fashion Mario Boselli stated that this exhibition dedicated to Milanese citizens will be successful as events reuniting art and fashion always are.
In a way, you wish they had splashed a bit more money for a proper exhibition about art and fashion that offered public engagement and had equally noble intentions.
Because - let's face it - while photo ops will multiply for fashionistas in the next few months around via Montenapoleone (you can already imagine many Instagram accounts getting clogged with thousands of pics of fashionistas' feet clad in glamorous shoes standing on the manholes...), people who hate fashion designers will have even more fun trampling upon these urban features or taking their dogs for a "fun" walk (even though this is a no pooping and no peeing zone...).
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