After a few seasons of virtual exhibitions, "Milano Unica", the reference fair for Italian textiles, finally took place in the presence.
Beyond all the considerations about the commercial and representative results of the event, I would like to dwell briefly on the contents and on the fashion, trend forecast speech that has been set up within the forum.
Antonella Martinetto, head of the trends table and Stefano Fadda, artistic director, have created an interesting and very helpful work for those who, like me, deal with product fabrics and designs. Communicating trends is an aesthetic fact, connected to social events, with transformative wills and lowered into humanistic culture because it is connected to the literary, historical, philosophical world and that must necessarily involve being, existence and becoming.
I think I can say that all these elements were taken up by the authors of the forum, who worked wisely between the conscious and the collective unconscious. Already in the title, "Magnificent Passions" is alluded with admiration to the "sensations" described within a very broad framework that provides for contrasting perceptions such as pleasures, pains, fears, desires.
Following the "road map" designated by Fadda, we are faced with three mega trends both composed of two stories.
PERSONAL PASSIONS:
· Betrayal, certainly "pleasure, pain, fear and desire" are found in the first theme. The tissues related to it represent more the propaedeutic and seductive part of the act; and can be grouped into some concepts already revealed (in summer weights) on the catwalks of Milan fashion week and which I gave an account of in my previous "Carta tecnica di Giugno". The most obvious themes are: openwork effect Jacquard effects, transparencies and overlaps of lace, coated and lacquered finishes.
· Nutrition, the food trend skilfully winks at two mainstream trends of our contemporaneity, the gastronomic aesthetics combined with the concept of recycling and sustainability, a theme widely taken up in the space dedicated to ecology. The fabrics of this group seem to prefer the great return of the wool coat both clearcut and mill as well as chenille yarns and finishing effects that tend to swell the surfaces of the fabrics.
SOCIAL PASSIONS:
· Beauty, The theme takes up very effectively the idea that focuses on the value of inclusion, a concept masterfully applied in various global advertising campaigns by both Nike and Gucci in which it is clearly stated that diversity, equality and inclusion are the fundamental values of the brand. The fabrics related to this story are in line with the basic concept and prefer coated finishing, silicone and treatments that give light to the fabric as well as interesting couplings with super soft polyurethane membranes.
· Christmas, the capsule played a lot with the semantic resignification that the authors wanted to propose in order to empty the term "Christmas" of religious symbolism, in favor of a series of transversal and commercial values that we could summarize with the term "opulence". In line with this concept, the fabrics are very characterized by lurex and damask effects enriched by "fil coupé" techniques; ubiquitous red and the "gold effect" as decoration.
PLANETARY PASSIONS:
· Ecology and Technology, the latter in particular seemed to me to be declined in a surprising way. Technology seen mainly as a praise of the "Fake" that in the discursive context of the story, assumes the creative value of alternative realities. Then the concept of "true" loses its meaning of ideal content, accepted and shared, to attribute a thousand different facets. In this perspective the fabrics take on a camouflage value in which nothing is what it seems anymore.
Curious and ironic to underline the oxymoronical characteristic of technology both as a creator of fakes and as an indispensable tool of post-modern communication. The basic concept and leitmotiv of the fair, variously underlined on various occasions also by the president of Milano Unica Alessandro Barberis Canonico, was the firm desire to return to "physical contact" with the fabric, the only guarantee to perceive and concretize the value of the product through the perception of the "hand" and the "appearance" of the type. The last three collections, for many companies, were presented through various digital platforms that, as highlighted by the forum, were both bearers of innovation and passpartout of the concept of Fake through the possible manipulation and digital transmutation.
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