MICHELE DE LUCCHI – FABIO FALCETTA
VISUAL DIALOGUE BETWEEN PROFESSIONS: ARCHITECT AND FASHION DESIGNER. Chapter #2
Premiered last June in Florence on the occasion of Pitti Uomo, a new chapter joins Michele De Lucchi and Fabio Falcetta: the ‘Visual Dialogue between professions’ is on stage in Milan during the Design Week. Through a selection of iconic pieces from their respective productions, the retrospective recounts a stylistic and design journey with a common place of the soul, Lake Maggiore, where they both have a home, laboratory, archive and studio: a body of water that reflects the aesthetics and functionality in the ‘artisanal construction’ of an object or outerwear. More than a collaboration, a true story of friendship: this is the bond between Fabio Falcetta and Michele De Lucchi, who will celebrate 30 years of history in the world of fashion, design and architecture.
And to honour the road they have travelled together, Michele and Fabio are back to celebrate their three- decade-long conversation between fashion and design thru an exhibition hosted at Palazzo Kiton in the center of Milano. The retrospective retraces the key stages of their respective productions, bringing together a selection of iconic pieces: garments and objects capable of penetrating our everyday lives with their aesthetic and functional power.
It was the 1990s, and Florence was establishing itself as a “cultural pole” of fashion, thanks to the development of the menswear industry and other textile and clothing sectors, while at the same time, Milan and Rome were consolidating fashion designers, the womenswear industry and haute couture. Pitti Immagine had personally involved the “enlightened” of the Italian business world and the communication and image experts of the sector. Fabio Falcetta and Michele de Lucchi also appear in the flow of this cultural revolution. It was 1993, and the two designers, for the first time, were playing on the same team. In the halls of the Fortezza da Basso, Fabio Falcetta presented his first collection, a small selection of outerwear created for Montedoro. The stand was designed together with his friend and colleague Michele De Lucchi, who at that time had already demonstrated his talent.
“I got to know Michele better when I designed the Montedoro stand for Pitti in 1993. We talked about book- shaped boxes containing my garments, arranged side by side to form a bookcase, jackets and waterproof coats hung on hooks to enhance their lightness, refined and lightweight lamps like Michele’s to highlight the hand, the patterns of the fabrics and the shapes of each garment”. Fabio Falcetta
A design and stylistic approach that has evolved over time, in a two-way street between artisans of creativity, united by a passion for their ideas, expressed with a certain degree of flair and childlike inventiveness. What binds them together is an affinity of thought, simple and sophisticated at the same time, which was born, grows and is nurtured in the atmosphere of Lake Maggiore, in Angera, the shared and beloved place of the soul, where they both live and create, and where it is normal to feel creative, friendly and deeply Angerian
“Luxury is not about being able to buy something that costs a lot, but about owning something that is difficult to have, for example, youth. So I am happy when people tell me that one of my garments rejuvenates, slims the figure, and gives the wearer a lighter appearance. But luxury is also about sharing a vision with a friend for thirty years, which translates into products and concepts for others; concepts born from the union of two crafts: designing objects and designing clothes. Today we are still here talking about what has been and about the future…” Fabio Falcetta “Einstein said, “Creativity is intelligence having fun”. Neither Fabio nor I claim to have Einstein’s intelligence, but we enjoy creating, inventing and surprising people with our ideas and thoughts, albeit in different ways for our professions and talents. We apply it to two worlds that may seem very distant, but are in fact very close, because they both project the present and seek to imagine what is to come, that which is not yet there, the future”. Michele De Lucchi Today, after 30 years, like a circle closing, still at the Pitti, Fabio and Michele are together again, side by side, looking to the future…
