Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion, Fashion Law, Science & Technology

Fashion & Coronavirus Face Masks, A Recap

What has Prada got to do with a women's religious order and with inmates in Italian prisons? Fashionistas, please don't fret, Miuccia hasn't decided to become a nun and she hasn't been arrested. The common factor between them is the fact that they recently joined the effort to fight against the Coronavirus outbreak in Italy (at the time of writing this post the country has recorded more than 100,000 cases and over 11,000 deaths) and are currently producing face masks.

As the virus quickly spread, it became clear that there was an immediate need for specific medical supplies, especially masks and personal protective equipment (PPE) and the response from the fashion industry, but also from smaller factories and independent workshops and designers has been great. In some Italian regions, including Lombardy and Tuscany, where there are prisons that have garment laboratories (Milan-based prisons San Vittore, Opera, Bollate and Monza, for example), inmates are also sewing face masks. 

After receiving a request from the Tuscany region, Prada started making 110,000 sanitary masks and 80,000 medical overalls for health-care personnel in Montone (Perugia). This is the only factory still operative belonging to the Italian fashion group and it is supported by a network of suppliers also based in Italy. Daily deliveries of these materials should be completed by April 6. On top of that, a couple of weeks ago, Prada's Patrizio Bertelli and Miuccia Prada, along with chairman Carlo Mazzi, donated six intensive care units to Milan's Vittore Buzzi, Sacco and San Raffaele hospitals.  

After an initial donation of 1.25 million euros to the Luigi Sacco and San Raffaele hospitals and the Istituto dei Tumori in Milan, as well as the Istituto Lazzaro Spallanzani in Rome, and the Italian Protezione Civile (Civil Protection), Armani decided to donate funds also to hospitals in Bergamo and Piacenza and the Versilia hospital in Tuscany. Besides, the company also started producing in all its Italian factories (four) disposable smocks for health-care providers.

In Italy there have been a wide range of projects revolving around face masks: printing plants like Grafica Veneta, located in the province of Padua and printing 300 million books a year, reconverted to make face masks; Alba-based textile firm Miroglio Group, produced instead washable masks that can be ironed and used 5 times. The company is providing them for emergency workers, NGOs and journalists.

Verona-based group Calzedonia also converted the production in Gissi, Avio (Trento) and Croatia to produce face masks: the new machines in these plants allow to manufacture 10,000 face masks a day, but the numbers will increased in the next few weeks.

Rome-based Talarico usually makes ties, but started producing face masks with fabric leftovers in March. In their case, they opted for a mask with a pocket inside in which wearers can insert a sheet of non-woven paper to maximise protection. The money from the sale of the face masks went to the region of origin of the company founder, Calabria. The production was suspended after a decree of the Italian government stopped all non-essential activities in the country to reduce the risk of contagion.

There have also been several independent projects about masks: local artisans and seamstresses in Miglianico, in the Abruzzo region, made almost 3,000 face masks, co-ordinated by the owners of a spinning artisanal workshop in the villlage. Even though these masks are not medical devices, they were washed and sterilised in a local laundry, then packed one by one and donated to the Civil Protection that delivered them to the locals.

Powerful fashion conglomerates and groups are helping in different ways: Kering, owner of Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen and Brioni, made a donation of $2m to Coronavirus medical research, and donated 3 million face masks (purchased and imported from China) to French health services.

Gucci, one of its brands, made two separate donations to crowdfunding campaigns, one for the Italian Civil Protection Department and another to the United Nations Foundation's Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund in support of the World Health Organization. The brand also announced it is ready to make over one million masks and 55,000 medical overalls in Italy when approved by the medical authorities (other Kering brands with factories based in France, such as Balenciaga and Saint Laurent, also announced they were ready to make masks).

The latest luxury brand to join in the efforts is Chanel that announced on Sunday it would launch production of face masks and gowns after its prototypes received the approval of French authorities.

American companies also teamed up against Coronavirus: inspired by JFK's quote "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country", some brands (American Giant, Parkdale Inc., Fruit of the Loom, Hanesbrands, Los Angeles Apparel, AST Sportswear, American Knits, Beverly Knits, and Riegel Linen) have formed a coalition set to provide medical-grade masks.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo appealed for medical supplies and fashion designers tried to help, among the others Brandon Maxwell who announced on Instagram that his atelier has started focusing on researching how to make PPE and in particular hospital gowns, while Christian Siriano's staff got instead busy making masks for non-medical hospital workers who do not need medical-grade protective equipment (like most masks produced by fashion designers, Siriano's are not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration). 

Threeasfour gave a sustainable twist to their masks coming up with a washable version made with leftover fabrics from their "inSALAAM inSHALOM" collection (2012): they are sold on their website accompanied by a note stating that obviously these are not N95 certified masks and they don't prevent illness or COVID-19, blocking airborne particles or viruses, but they offer some protection.

The designers pledge they will be donating 10% of each purchase towards creating medical masks for  the support of the health community in New York City.   

Face mask-wise there have also been interesting experiments: Cifra, an Italian company producing seamless garments with the WKS (Warp Knitting Seamless) technique created the Warp-Mask in a high-tech waterproof, washable and sterilised Oeko Tex Standard 100 fabric.

Blueitaly also produces resistant anti-fog (for people who wear glasses) masks in polyurethane that can be washed with water and soap, but they are awaiting for the medical certification, while Giosport started manufacturing washable masks made with technical fabrics that already managed to obtain the 93/42/CEE 2020 medical certification.

Now, while it is great to see how the fashion industry has been reacting to this unprecedented emergency, it must be highlighted that, in most cases, switching the production to face masks and hospital gowns is a way to keep a factory going and the workforce employed, which isn't certainly easy in these times. Yet, as stated in a previous post, most of these masks are not designed for medical purposes, even though they are useful to create a barrier for everyday purposes and needs. 

The most reliable masks are indeed manufactured by those companies that already produce personal hygiene products: for example, Pescara-based Fater reconverted its industrial line usually employed to make sanitary towels, and developed a mask that passed lab tests and proved effective against bacteria and biological risks. The company can produce 250,000 pieces a day. 

All this race to producing masks should also make us stop and ponder if there may be some companies out there producing protective equipment with dangerous materials or in unsafe conditions. Consider for example the fact that fast fashion companies (from the Inditex Group, owner of Zara, to H&M) would like to join the effort and produce masks, gowns, gloves, goggles and caps for this emergency, and you immediately start wondering where their factories will be based and if they will be approved for safety, health, and environmental protection standards (or will they be made in unsterile sweatshops?).

Throughout March the Italian authorities have found all over the country counterfeit medical masks and hand sanitisers made in illegal laboratories with counterfeit trademarks and fake "CE" certification stamps, so there is already an emergency within the emergency. 

Maybe we should also start considering not just the emergency, but also what will come after Coronavirus: we are making masks, but we will have to start thinking how to dispose of these potentially contaminated materials or how we can recycle them (in Italy you go out shopping for groceries with a mask and gloves; quite often supermarkets give you gloves at the entrance and it is not rare to find gloves discarded in the parking lot outside the supermarket by careless people...).

Alternatives to mask making have so far included producing hand sanitisers: LVMH converted the production facilities of its Perfumes & Cosmetics brands - Christian Dior, Guerlain and Givenchy - but Estée Lauder, the L'Oréal Group, Coty Inc. also went for this option.

Other fashion personalities and groups have limited themselves instead to making donations (among the others Donatella Versace and her daughter Allegra Versace Beck; Valentino Garavani and his longtime business partner Giancarlo Giammetti; the Geox and Diadora labels; and Qatar-based fund Mayhoola, parent company of Valentino, Balmain and Pal Zileri). 

Is it possible to contribute in other ways to the global fight against Coronavirus? While in some cases the fashion designer masks may look cool, it seems like donating N95 masks to hospitals or donating money to research facilties working on Coronavirus are other options. And while we do it, we should maybe start pondering about something else as well: the pandemic has radically transformed our lives and the world as we knew it, and a global demand for masks reshifted the production from clothes and accessories to medical supplies, maybe proving that so far we have manufactured way too many clothes that we didn't really need.

In Times of Coronavirus, The Temporarily Closed Museum Turns into an Artist's Space: The Fries Museum X Claudy Jongstra

Public life has shut down due to the Coronavirus crisis. The present is fluid: time seems to be defined only by the latest news about the global pandemic that has radically changed our lives. The future remains therefore uncertain: we mark our days in lockdown while we collectively hope we may go back to normality and to a more social life as soon as possible.

Yet there is one question that insistently buzzes in our minds - will life be the same if and when the crisis is over? Artist Claudy Jongstra is asking herself the same question, but she is also wondering if we can try and redesign the relationship between human beings and nature and she is providing some answers through her new work. 

A passionate advocate of sustainability with an eye for the conservation of biodiversity, the award winning textile artist and designer settled in 2001 in the village of Spannum, in Friesland, two hours from Amsterdam. Here she breeds her own flock of rare Drenthe Heath heritage sheep, keeps bees and designs felt pieces made in collaboration with her team that comprises felters and dyers. As an artist she breathes new life into old crafts, such as weaving and felting wool. All materials are produced locally and sustainably, in close connection with the surrounding communities, and her textiles have also been integrated into fashion designs including Viktor & Rolf's Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 19 and Martin Margiela's Artisanal A/W 2018-19 collections.   

In 2018 the Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden and Claudy Jongstra entered into a long-term partnership, something very apt as the institution and the artist share a passion for textiles. One section of the museum's permanent collection is indeed entitled "Seven Centuries of Leiden Cloth" and Jongstra also designed a textile for the museum, a woolen fabric that is sold by the meter in the museum shop.

The museum scheduled a major solo exhibition for the Autumn of 2020 (the opening date will be announced later on) focused on Jongstra (and in collaboration with curator Nicole Roepers and guest curator Suzanne Oxenaar) that should occupy a new wing of the restored and expanded building. The event will include a new monumental installation entitled "Nine". 

As most museums, including the De Lakenhal, are currently closed because of Coronavirus, the artist didn't know if she may have found a suitable workspace to develop her new 250 square meter installation. Luckily, the Fries Museum came to her rescue: even though also this institution is closed, it offered Jongstra the chance to work in its reception hall in the coming weeks. Jongstra has therefore set up a temporary studio there until the institution opens again.

In this way the artist can still work and the museum will contribute to the realization of new art, and, though visitors may not be able to see the artist at work, we will all be able to follow the process via social media platforms and ponder in this way about materials, resources and production systems. "For me, a holistic approach is of fundamental importance. In my work, regenerative agriculture, local materials and the preservation of old knowledge are central, "Jongstra states in a press release. "In this time of the Coronavirus crisis, this appears to be even more relevant and important than before. Now global supply chains are under current constraints, we are noticing the benefits of protecting local resources and reviving regional production systems. "

Temporarily converting a museum into an artist's workshop isn't obviously possible for most museums (for safe and safety reasons, insurance and so on), yet it remains an intriguing idea that may help us redesigning and reinventing some cultural spaces in the future. "Jongstra demonstrates that the connection with the past can pave the way to the future", Meta Knol, director of Museum De Lakenhal, states. "For us as a museum, this is a positive and inspiring example which we would like to share with as many others as possible." 

Image credits in this post

Photographs by David Vroom

De-Stress with Downloadable Fashion-Themed Colouring Pages

Sundays are usually quiet affairs, but if you're in a lockdown and in quarantine because of Coronavirus, they may become extremely dull days. 

Yet there are ways to relieve the boredom and stress and get (at least for a short while) your mind off the worries generated by this global pandemic. How? Well, there are a few institutions currently providing colouring sheets of artefacts from their collections that you may use as a fun therapy.

The Fashion Museum in Bath offers a Learning Life section for example with a downloadable coloring page of a 1760s yellow and gold woven silk robe à la française from its collections, plus instructions to learn how to make quick craft projects with spare buttons or knitting with your fingers.

Bata Shoe Museum publishes every week on its site a "Colouring The World at Your Feet" sheet: the new one will be published on Friday, but, for the time being, you can choose between several designs including Bally's '20s shoes with woven uppers and Air Jordan I sneakers or rubber "silver wing" bathing shoes made by Phillips in 1934, André Perugia's glamorous 1930s shoes and Steven Arpad's creation for Delman with a sinuously carved wooden heel. Those ones who like a fun twist in their shoes can try and reinvent the colour scheme in Beth Levine's racing cars shaped shoes.

While colouring pages are considered the perfect past times for chidlren, they can be great for grown-ups as well, especially if you have to try and colour in (or maybe decorate with other materials), beaded Wabanaki moccasins or the distinctive platform shoes worn by upper-class Manchu women during the late Qing dynasty.

Once you're finished you can share your creations online by tagging @batashoemuseum and using #BSM. Stay safe, stay home (if you can and if you live in one of the many countries that are currently in lockdown) and try to have an anxiety-free Sunday.    

Rich Embroideries, From Religion to Haute Couture (Thinking About All the Artisans Affected by Coronavirus)

"For weeks now it has been evening. Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by; we feel it in the air, we notice in people's gestures, their glances give them away. We find ourselves afraid and lost," Pope Francis stated yesterday afternoon during a special "Urbi et Orbi" blessing and prayer service on the steps of St Peter's Basilica for the end of the Coronavirus pandemic. It was a surreal and moving moment, especially when the camera framed the empty square.

Fans of the fashion and religion connection who worshipped at the altar of the Costume Institute's Spring 2018 Exhibition "Heavenly Bodies" and followed the prayer service, may have spotted something interesting - the humeral (from the Latin "humerus" – shoulder) veil donned by the Pope.

This is a liturgical vestment, a fabric rectangle (2.50 m or 2.75 m long and 60 cm or 90 cm wide), used by the Catholic and Anglican churches (and in some Lutheran churches). The vestment is mainly white (though red and purple may be used only for Good Friday), it is draped over the shoulders and down the front and features pockets at the ends that allow the wearer to hold items without touching them with the hands. 

The veil is indeed often seen during the liturgy of the Exposition and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament: priests or deacons bless the people with the monstrance and cover their hands with the ends of the veil so that they don't touch the monstrance in sign of respect for the sacred vessel that contains the Eucharist in which Jesus is present.

The garment is usually covered with intricate embroideries representing the blessed sacrament surrounded by rays (like the one we saw yesterday during the Pope's special service), the cross or other Eucharistic emblems (the letters IHS, contraction of the name Jesus, the lamb, ears of corn or bunches of grapes).

Somehow, the more you looked at the garment donned by the Pope, the more you thought about iconic designs covered with embroideries of rays such as Schiaparelli's "Phoebus" cape ("Cosmique" Winter Collection 1938-39). A constant inspiration for other designers and an item that often reappeared in runway shows in more recent years, the shocking pink cape featured on the back a sequinned embroidery by Lesage with a sunray mask of tinsel and gold thread. The cape was called "Phoebus" as in classical mythology this title referred to Apollo, the sun god, and therefore to a personification of the sun.

You could argue that both these garments have a great theatrical effect as they are characterised by a dichotomy between simplicity (the rectangle of fabric or the minimalist cape) and the rich embroidery on the back. Schiaparelli was somehow also inspired by religion and in particular by St. Peter's Square as she embroidered Saint Peter's keys on an evening suit in 1939.

The rich embroideries on these two garments should make us stop and think about all the craftspeople who may not be working at the moment because of Coronavirus.   

The Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode that regulates fashion in France has officially cancelled the men's June shows and Haute Couture fashion week in July, while the Italian Camera Nazionale della Moda rescheduled the men's shows to September (they will take place together with the womenswear runways), so these will be complex times for many categories working in the fashion industry, especially highly skilled artisans.

Can 3D Printing Help Fighting Coronavirus?

At the end of of February, when Coronavirus had already started spreading in the north of Italy, a bizarre picture went viral on social media: it showed a man walking in via Toledo, in the centre of Naples, wearing not a surgical mask, but a full-face snorkeling mask. Hilarity, as you may imagine, ensued: that wasn't certainly the best way to protect yourself from Coronavirus, but it was ideal for Carnival maybe.

Fast-forward to today: a month has gone and COVID-19 is a nightmare and a pandemic. Italy is fighting against a major Coronavirus outbreak, with the north remaining the most badly affected area. Besides, we aren't laughing anymore at the snorkeling mask. That's actually not because it can be used to replace surgical masks that have become rare, but because a startup transformed the snorkeling device into a useful medical applicance thanks to 3D printing.

As Coronavirus spread, 3D printing has become widely used for a variety of applications: in yesterday's post we mentioned 3D-printed isolation wards in China, but there have so far been companies such as Prusa and Stratasys that developed 3D-printed face shields for medical staff, while Copper3D worked on a 3D-printed N95 mask called NanoHack, manufactured with a material called Plactive.

Projects have also multiplied for what regards 3D printed face masks to make at home as surgical masks are by now rare (yet, as highlighted in a previous post, this may not be a great idea as PLA, the most common material used for 3D printing, is not food safe).

One of the most interesting applications of 3D printing came from Italy. Dr Renato Favero, former primary doctor at the hospital of Gardone Valtrompia, realised they didn't have enough C-PAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) masks for sub-intensive therapy, so he got in touch with a Brescia-based company, Isinnova, a startup founded by Cristian Fracassi, that was already making 3D valves for respirators. The doctor was familiar with the "Easybreath" full-face snorkeling mask sold by European sports retailer Decathlon and was thinking about a way to transform the device into a respirator.

Decathlon eventually provided a CAD drawing of their snorkeling mask and Isinnova studied it and then produced a 3D-printed valve called "Charlotte" that can be attached to the mask and connected to the oxygen tube (there is also an additional valve called "Dave" that can be used for the reservoir). The first prototype in polylactic acid or polylactide (PLA) was printed in a couple of hours.Then the company started working on more prototypes in a light-sensitive resin and polyamide-12-coated aluminum powder that needed a longer production time (24 hours).

A test at the Chiari hospital in the province of Brescia proved that it was possible to attach the mask with the valve to the oxygen tube and create in this way a non-invasive ventilator that was successfully tested on a patient. As the news spread, giving hospitals hopes for an emergency solution, Decathlon announced it will donate 10,000 "Easybreath" masks to Italian hospitals (people willing to help should buy and donate a mask, rather than donating their own as the latter would have to be sterilised and that would mean money and time...).

The downside of this project is that these masks can only be employed for emergencies as they are uncertified for this purpose and they can only be used with the signed approval of the patient. 

The good news is that, while the patent for the "Charlotte "valve is being sought to prevent price speculations, this remains an open source project like the CURA pods we looked at yesterday, so all makers can print the valves and in this way hospitals all over the world can use this emergency device.

There have actually been makers who took the project further: another Italian 3D printing company, SolidEnergy, explained that the valves designed by Isinnova must be adapted to tubes and filters that are different from hospital to hospital, so they created a valve that allows to connect the mask also to an artificial respirator; besides, they also found a way to insert industrial P3 filters in the mask and turn it into a comfortable and protective device for medical staff. Design may not be able to find the cure for Coronavirus, but it will definitely help scientists and medical staff buying time for a vaccine and saving lives. 

Architectures of Emergency: CURA - Connected Units for Respiratory Ailments

The 17th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice may have been postponed until 29th August because of the Coronavirus outbreak, but architecture isn't stopping in this emergency.

Quite a few architects and designers have indeed been working on projects to improve people's conditions and to help hospitals and health professionals. Among them there is Italian Professor Carlo Ratti, founder of Carlo Ratti Associati studio and Director of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Yet Ratti is not alone, but he is part of an international group of architects, designers, engineers, doctors, military experts and NGOs that developed an open-source project called "CURA", a word that in Latin and Italian means "cure" or "treatment", but in this case also an acronym standing for "Connected Units for Respiratory Ailments". Beware, though, this is not your average field hospital: CURA consists indeed in converting 20-foot intermodal shipping containers into plug-in Intensive-Care Units (ICU) for COVID-19 patients. The units - each destined to two COVID-19 intensive-care patients - work autonomously, but the pods can be connected using an inflatable structure to create multiple modular configurations (from 4 beds to over 40).

The units can be mounted as fast as hospital tents, but they are as safe as an isolation ward as they are characterised by a biocontainment: an extractor creates indoor negative pressure, complying with the standards of Airborne Infection Isolation Rooms (AIIRs).

The pods can be deployed in cities around the world (shipping containers can easily be moved through different modes of transport - from ship to rail or truck), responding in relatively short times to the shortage of ICU space in hospitals and the spread of the disease.

Once arrived, the units can be installed anywhere, from a hospital parking lot to expand the main hospital capacity, to a field hospital. The first unit is currently being built in Milan, Italy, with the sponsorship of European bank UniCredit.

The project was the immediate answer to the main problem caused by the pandemic, first in China, then in Italy and now all over the world, as the virus has quickly spread from Asia to Europe and America as well.

So far both China and Italy responded by creating makeshift emergency hospitals in tents, tensile structures or prefabricated wards (Chinese company Winsun also came up with 3D-printed isolation wards - concrete pods built using a robotic arm - for Xianning Central Hospital). In Italy there has also been a debate about reopening or adapting hospitals that were closed down or repurposing existing buildings.

Yet tents are not ideal as the risk of contamination for medical staff is higher, while prefabricated structures and existing buildings that need to be readapted imply longer times.

CURA is as fast to mount as a hospital tent, but as safe as a hospital's isolation ward to work in, thanks to biocontainment. The pods also tackle the sustainability aspect as the project consists in readapting shipping containers. Once converted into CURA units, the pods can be re-used in different parts of the world.

The CURA units are developed in an open-source, non-for-profit framework and the team behind the project also solicits suggestions and improvements.

Ratti and the international team that joined the project (comprising more than 100 people) worked on the project from their own homes, with meetings on Zoom and Skype and exchanging projects and ideas via email, and they should be praised for finding a solution that could buy scientists more time to find a cure and a vaccine.

Let's hope that, once the Coronavirus emergency is over (and let's hope that happens soon), architecture festivals like the Venice Biennale will develop sections and awards dedicated to emergency projects (to tackle issues such as climate change, pandemics, earthquakes...) as this is a key area that must definitely be explored more with fast and scalable solutions. 

Postcards from Milan: Cinzia Ruggeri's 1986 "Fluxus Runway" + "Mefisto Funk" Costumes

Lombardy is the Italian region that got most badly affected by Coronavirus, so let's virtually visit Milan today, going back in time with two videos recently posted by Marco Poma's Metamorphosi Editrice YouTube channel (with many thanks to Milan-based crocheter extraordinaire Aldo Lanzini who alerted us about the videos being posted).

The first one refers to the 1986 "Fluxus" runway by the late designer Cinzia Ruggeri: the recorded catwalk showed models in constant movement walking from one screen to the next (spot in the video Corrado Levi's "Gioielli guaritori" for Cinzia Ruggeri). The video was projected on two parallel screens during the actual runway with models who statically posed in front of the screens.

The second video is a trailer for the film "Mefisto Funk" (1986) directed by Poma that featured Ruggeri's costumes.

The first video should make us think: this was one of the first attempts at recording a fashion show and at using the film to amplify the content and message of a runway and at interpreting them in an arty rather than merely commercial way. 

When Coronavirus started spreading the shows in Milan were ending and some designers like Armani decided to present their collections behind closed doors. A few weeks have passed since then and now the entire world has gone into a major shutdown and many of us have been confined to their houses for days. So what will happen to fashion shows at the end of this pandemic? Will the video format definitely prevail or will real and theatrical shows be popular again?  

"Mefisto Funk" was an experimental reinterpretation of Goethe's Faust, with some philosophical questions that seem to be apt even in our days and in the modern fashion industry (in the film Mefisto asked the protagonist if he prefers watching without being watched or watching and being watched, something that seem to anticipate the power of surveillance cameras in our society but also our obsession with selfies).

Did modern fashion ever reference the designs/costumes in these videos? Well, spot the shirts with Ruggeri's handpainted portrait of Frankenstein's monster and you will immediately start wondering if Miuccia Prada remembered these 1986 designs when she designed her Menswear, Pre-Fall and Womens' collection for the last season and was indirectly paying homage to it when she used the monster as inspiration for her designs. Who knows, the dilemma remains. But, in the meantime, you can go and check out the other videos on Poma's Metamorphosi Editrice YouTube channel: quite a few of them are linked with architecture, design and fashion in Milan in the '80s and they will prove inspiring and will keep Lombardy in our thoughts as we hope the COVID-19 outbreak slows down and comes to a halt there, in Italy and in the rest of the world.

Cinematic Obituary (With Some Fashion Notes): Lucia Bosè (1931-2020)

Actress Lucia Bosè died yesterday at the General Hospital of Segovia at the age of 89 from pneumonia complicated by COVID-19.

Born in 1931 in Milan, from Domenico Borloni and Francesca Bosè, the actress was discovered by Luchino Visconti while she worked in a Milanese pastry shop, Pasticceria Galli.

In 1947 Bosè won the Miss Italia beauty contest and had her big break in 1950 with Giuseppe De Santis' film Non c'è pace tra gli ulivi (Under the Olive Tree).

In the same year she appeared in another film, Cronaca di un amore (The Story of a Love Affair) by Michelangelo Antonioni. Three years later, the Italian director also chose her for the main role in another film, La signora senza camelie (The Lady Without Camelias, 1953).

In the film Bosè stars as Clara Manni, a young shop assistant who, discovered by a film producer, becomes an actress. In this film fashion is used to show Clara's progress from rags to riches.

But there is another movie linked with high fashion in which Bosè appeared - Le Ragazze di Piazza di Spagna (Three Girls from Rome, 1952) by Luciano Emmer.

This film that follows the vicissitudes of Marisa, Elena and Lucia, three young seamstresses and the movie was in part shot at the atelier of the Fontana sisters (Zoe Fontana has a cameo in the film), that was based near the Spanish Steps. Bosè starred as one of the three seamstresses working at the Sorelle Fontana atelier who one day gets the chance to star in a high fashion runway show.

In 1955 Bosè married Spanish bullfighter Luis Miguel González Dominguin and retired from the screen after she had three children, Miguel, Paola and Lucía. She returned to cinema in the late '60s, after her divorce, appearing in Fellini's Fellini Satyricon (1969), in the Taviani Brothers' Under the Sign of Scorpio (1969), Mario Colucci's Something Creeping in The Dark (1971), Liliana Cavani's The Guest (1971), Giulio Questi's Arcana (1972) and Marguerite Duras' Nathalie Granger (1972).

She continued to be active in Italian and Spanish films and starred also in Francesco Rosi's Cronaca di una morte annunciata (Chronicle of a Death Foretold, 1987) and Ferzan Özpetek's Harem suaré (1999). During the last decades Bosè often appeared on television shows or in films in her trademark electric blue hair, a fierce hairstyle that she opted for as a sign of rebellion since, as she often revealed in interviews, she always longed to be different.

There are great connections with fashion in some of her films: in Antonioni's Cronaca di un amore (Story of a Love Affair), Bosè starred next to costume designer Ferdinando Sarmi who appeared in the movie as Enrico Fontana. Sarmi, who worked on the film with a young designer from Naples, Fausto Sarli, left Italy shortly afterwards, moving to the States where he became head designer for Elizabeth Arden and where, years later, he opened his own boutiques.

Lucia Bosè, was only nineteen when the film was shot, but Antonioni remembered in an interview how, after they dressed her up in Haute Couture creations and extraordinary jewels, she turned into a real lady. The lavish furs, the rich evening gowns and the avant-garde hats worn by the actress had a sociological purpose in the film: they had to highlight the emptiness, alienation and futility of the upper middle-classes who hid their loneliness, frustrations and banality behind luxurious items of clothing. In the film fashion and luxury are associated with the dissoluteness and perversion of the female protagonist, a stereotypical femme fatale.

In La signora senza camelie (The Lady Without Camelias, 1953) Bosè was dresssed by the prestigious Sartoria Battilocchi, an Italian Haute Couture fashion house founded in the 1920s in Rome by Aurora Battilocchi. The dresses produced by Battilocchi were famous for their precise cut, luxurious fabrics and refined details and were perfect to highlight Clara's transformation.

Exquisite and lavish fabrics such as satin and silk were chosen for the evening dresses Bosè wore, complemented by accessories such as leather gloves, belts and bags, while plush leopard furs by the Venice-based Riele were used as a symbol of the status Clara reached at the climax of her career. You can discover more about this film in a previous post about it or you can rewatch one of Bosè's films to get inspired by her stylish attires.

When Art Met Fashion in a Spring Gown: Rosa Genoni's La Primavera Dress

We should have been celebrating the first day of Spring last week, but the thoughts of most of us are currently taken by the Coronavirus pandemic. But, despite the emergency is ruling (and ruining...) our lives, for today let's try to think about something uplifting like Spring, with this ball gown designed by Italian seamstress, journalist, designer and feminist Rosa Genoni.

The "Primavera" (Spring) gown was designed in 1906 and was inspired by Flora's dress in the painting "Spring" by Botticelli.

The silk ivory gown was characterised by a trumpet-shaped skirt and an ecru tulle overdress that opened on the left side.

The overdress featured a grid-like border with gold and silver embroideries and the gown was covered in rich floral motifs, embroidered in multicoloured threads and decorated with mother-of-pearl lamellea and glass tube beads. Materials such as Chenille, beads and threads employed in contrasting colours helped giving the embroideries beautiful three-dimensional effects.

The gown, made by the students of the Dressmaking Section of the Scuola Professionale Femminile della Società Umanitaria in Milan (Genoni directed the department and taught at the school until 1931 when she resigned to avoid having to swear allegiance to Fascism), was presented at Milan's International Exhibition in 1906 and represented Rosa Genoni's passion for fashion and art.

Born in 1867 in the province of Sondrio, Genoni spent some time in Paris where she got the chance of studying the local fashion traditions and where she got acquainted with French style and taste.

When she returned to Milan in 1888, Genoni went to work for a local tailoring house and fought for the improvement of the labour conditions.

From 1895 she started working for a famous Milanese tailoring house, H. Haardt et Fils, that had its main atelier in Corso Vittorio Emanuele 28 and branches in San Remo, St. Moritz and Lucerne.

Genoni realised that Italy had a great potential when it came to creating fashion, but, despite having been unified in 1861, the country lacked a strong national identity and this was one of the main reasons why it struggled to come up with its own fashion tradition and industry (Genoni was ahead of her times and in favour of the industrial profuction of garments).      

Genoni decided therefore to look at the past and in particular at the Renaissance to find a national identity, and started developing designs inspired by the art of those times.

The designer claimed indeed that the artistic heritage of Italy could have been employed as inspiration for new clothes and hairstyles as well, characterised by a classical allure and an elegant style. While Italian fashion started in the 1950s, Genoni became a pioneer of the "Made in Italy" concept and an advocate for the rights of fashion workers.  

The designs she created for the 1906 International Exhibition in Milan were very successful: for them she employed Italian textiles and the Flora-inspired dress (together with the court cape inspired by a drawing by Pisanello) won her the Grand Prize in the Decorative Art section of the event. In 1983, Rosa Genoni's daughter Fanny donated the gown to the Costume Gallery of Palazzo Pitti in Florence where it is still preserved and where, hopefully, we will all be to admire it again at the end of this emergency.

Will Coronavirus Change the Way Fashion Companies Relate to their Workforce?

In the last few posts we looked at Italy-based companies manufacturing luxury products still open for business despite the country is in a lockdown caused by Coronavirus outbreak, and at companies reconverting production to manufacture face masks.

Things have changed in Italy, again: as the numbers of people getting infected or dying were increasing rather than going down, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced last night further measures (that will be valid at least until 3rd April) and the final closure of all non-essential activities (even Amazon will have to prioritise food and health products). This decision was aimed at fighting Italy's biggest crisis after Second War World. At the time of writing this post, Italy has indeed registered over 59,000 infected cases and 5,476 deaths (Lombardy is the hardest hit region with over 27,000 cases).The workers of the Penne-based Brioni company will be relieved at Conte's announcement: just a few days ago the trade unions stated that it was surreal to ask people to stay home while Brioni's workforce was instead asked to keep production going. The trade unions had announced a strike tomorrow if the Abruzzese manufacturing plant had open. This factory is indeed located nearby small towns in the Val Fino area that were recently declared red zones. This area was hit rather badly by COVID-19 and a few towns were put into quarantine (you can't go out or enter the towns in question and the streets that take in or out of the towns are monitored by police forces).

Kering, the Paris-based luxury group owning Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta and Brioni (among other luxury brands), hasn't so far issued any official document about Brioni's factory. Around ten days ago, Kering was in the news for donating 2 million Euros to health-care organizations in Lombardy, Veneto, Tuscany and Lazio to support the fight against COVID-19. There were no specific donations to health-care organisations in the Abruzzo region (where 587 Coronavirus cases were registered) and that was a shame as that's where the Brioni factory is located, and it almost showed a disinterest from the luxury group towards this brand (that fell from grace in the last few years also after rather disreputable choices at creative level). Shoes for another Kering brand, Alexander McQueen, are also produced in the same region (and the factory producing them was still open this past week), so it wouldn't have been a bad choice donating money to local organisations.  

Last Friday, the company posted on its site an initial estimate of the COVID-19 epidemic impact. In the document, Kering stated that "its consolidated revenue for the first quarter of 2020, ending March 31, should post a decline of 13% to 14% in reported terms (down around 15% in comparable terms) versus the first quarter of 2019." The document also stated that, while encouraging signs started showing in Mainland China, the impact of the epidemic is significant in other Asia Pacific markets, Western Europe and, more recently, North America.

Kering announced that it is therefore expecting second quarter 2020 revenue to be sharply impacted by the effect of the epidemic on local clienteles and tourism, and a first half 2020 recurring operating margin in decline, which would be premature to quantify at this stage given the dynamic nature of the situation and the current lack of visibility (Kering will release its first quarter 2020 revenue on April 21 after market close). The company didn't post any documents about the emergency in Italy or the safety of its workers in Italian factories and that was a shame, as that would have made a difference and showed some support and solidarity to its workforce. 

Other companies in Italy adopted a different approach: Giorgio Armani was almost ridiculed when in February, after the first cases of Coronavirus were found in Italy, he decided to hold his runway behind closed doors and in an empty theatre, while the show was streamed on the brand's website, on Instagram and Facebook. Around 10th March, the company announced it was going to close its shops, restaurants and hotel in Milan to try and mitigate the outbreak of Coronavirus. Armani then announced the donation of 1.25 million euros to the Luigi Sacco and San Raffaele hospitals and the Istituto dei Tumori in Milan, as well as the Istituto Lazzaro Spallanzani in Rome, and the Italian Protezione Civile (Civil Protection).

Yesterday the designer bought a page on more than 60 Italian dailies (among them Il Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, and Il Sole 24 Ore) and published a note to all the healthcare providers fighting the coronavirus outbreak.

Armani wrote: "It is moving to see you engaged in your work with all the difficulties and the great efforts that by now all the world knows. And especially to see you cry. I think that this feeling is connected to my own desire to become a doctor when I was young and I was looking to forge my path."

"All of the Giorgio Armani company is tuned in to this reality and is close to all of you: from the stretcher bearer to the nurse, from the family doctor to all of the specialists in the sector. I am personally close to you." 

In these difficult times, a short letter of solidarity meant more than a cold press release about the impact of a pandemic on earnings. Let's hope this unprecedented situation the entire world is going through at the moment will prompt many major players in the fashion industry to reconsider the way they deal with the workforce in their factories and start treating them with more consideration and respect, rather than like invisible elves magically manufacturing luxury products in all sorts of conditions all year round.