In Mamoru Hosoda's 2021 anime epic "Belle" (Ryū to Sobakasu no Hime, "Belle - The Dragon and the Freckled Princess"), the protagonist joins the virtual world of "U" and turns into Belle, the star of a digital universe.
Yet, even in this digital world, things are not that perfect: Belle has to face a menace threatening her dreams, discover the identity of a beast and heal it, reconciling her real and digital identity.
While Belle is clad in fantastic costumes designed by Anrealage, the beast hides behind a long cloak. The surface of the cloak is covered in what looks like stains, but, in reality, the stains represent the digitalized rendition of the physical and mental bruises and scars of its real alter ego.
It may be difficult - but not impossible - to find a similar effect in another medium and another field. In a recent collaboration with Hannes Peer and Zanellato/Bortotto, Del Savio 1910 explored the potential of marble in an original way.
In collaboration with Peer, a designer and architect from South Tyrol, the Pordenone-based marble company produced a sculptural shield with a shape vaguely reminiscent of a wind rose (but also calling to mind the spires of Milan's cathedral and the verticality of the Pirelli skyscraper) and a graphic effect created through a process of controlled randomness. The generative graphics behind the panel make you think about the digital process behind the creation of the dragon avatar in "Belle", a process that creates on his costume a painful embroidery.
The bruised effect on the cloak is also called to mind by the "Marble Marbling" vases created for HoperAperta in a collaborative project between Del Savio and the Zanellato/Bortotto studio.
The vases are inspired by the paper marbling technique that was already popular in Asia in the 15th century and was imported two centuries later by European travellers to the Middle East.
Marbling is a decorative technique that also inspired fashion collections and that consists in producing patterns similar to marble by making colour float on plain water or on a viscous solution (the shape of Zanellato/Bortotto's vases actually reminds of the tubs of water where a coloured pattern was prepared to decorate an item like a book with the marbling technique). The floating colours are then manipulated either by blowing on them directly or through a straw, fanning the colours or stirring them, and then they are transferred onto paper or fabric.
Fascinated by this tradition, Giorgia Zanellato and Daniele Bortotto interpreted this method in a completely original way, giving life to a new material, a complex surface that hybridizes concrete and marble with colours inspired by classic Italian marbles.
Obviously this is a casual comparison bewteen the costume of a character in an animated film and some interior designer pieces, but it is made to remind you that in life we can easily build connections and establish correspondences to combine different disciplines together.
And for those ones who would like to know more about these pieces, they can discover them during Milan Design Week at the event Doppia Firma at Palazzo Litta (Corso Magenta 24) and at the Ariston Hotel (Largo Carrobbio 2) from 7th till 12th June.
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