Book of the Month: Italian Touch by TOD'S

The Italian Touch is a collaboration between Donatella Sartorio, an Italian fashion and style journalist, and TOD’s, one of the most important Italian companies producing luxury leather goods. It includes more than 100 Italians of different ages photographed with their families, friends, children and an assortment of dogs in splendid historic palaces and the countryside, representing the Italian way of living and a certain "style" that goes beyond fashion and time.

This absorbing gallery of people includes all kinds of Italian citizens, like the sophisticated Tuscan prince, for example, who teaches International Law at university, edits a daily newspaper and manages his large winery at San Gimignano. There is the handsome Sicilian prince who rents the family palace for events, but who is also an entrepreneur and owns farms and eco-sustainable real estate. There is also the young marquis from Liguria who moved from Manhattan to Monferrato to manage the family company producing oil and wine.

They are all very elegant in jeans and moccasins, all "testament" to a current but timeless style that is undeniably Italian and famous throughout the world.

This is a book for enthusiasts of fashion and style, but it is also for those who love period interiors, city palaces, castles in the hills, and Italian landscapes, all ancient but alive and vibrant as ever.

Anna Dello Russo, until 2006 worked in Vogue Italia, currently fashion editor at Large & Creative Consultant, Vogue Nippon : "We Italians, have a very beautiful product that no one can beat, for quality, efficiency and tradition."

Here are some still scenes from the video that the campaign includes. Some really delicious shoots of villas, gardens and landscape near the Como lake.
To watch the clip, go on Tod's homesite.

The release of the book is dated on the 20th of October.

4 Places to go/see

1.MILAN

Why: Frank O. Gehry since 1997

Where: Triennale di Milano

When: September 09 – January 10

I'm sure almost everyone is familiar with that strange deformed building in Prague they call Dancing House. (above) If not then maybe by mentioning Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, something will shine out from the fog? Ok. If these two buildings do not say anything to you then you really URGE to see this exhibition! We are talking about one of the most significant architects of the 20^th century- Frank O. Gehry, the first one to introduce digital projecting and an artist who totally changed the way we look on contemporary architecture now. He's everything else than traditional and to describe his style as “modern” is a really modest way to talk about his work.

Pritzker Prize and Golden Lion (for his career). Not bad.

2. NEW YORK

Why: Tim Burton's retrospective

Where: MoMA

When: November 09 – April 10

Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, The Nightmare Before Christmas , Ed Wood , Mars Attacks!, Sleepy Hollow, Big Fish, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Sweeney Todd..

Oh, just some works you may find in his curriculum... + Oscar and Golden Lion winner. Don't you just die to know more and more about this genius- said very modestly- and his work, his evolution and his world?!?! (wow that even rimes..) No need to add anything else.

3.AMSTERDAM

Why: "At the Russian Court"

Where: Hermitage Amsterdam and Amstelhof

When: June 09 – January 10

A recreation of life at the Russian court during the nineteenth century: luxurious dinners, mask balls and banquettes, the marvellous gowns and other costumes, the art of dressing and make-up by the russian courtesans, precious jewelery worn by tsars and tsarinnas themselves and antique furniture which used to decorate their private rooms. This and more (1800 objects in total) loaned from the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, and organized by Merkx+Girod Architecten with photographs, projections and music.

4. PARIS

Why: "Tyen: 30 Years of Creation"

Where: Palais de Tokyo, 16 Avenue du Président Wilson, Parigi 16e.

When: 29-30 Settembre

Last but not least... Tyen's photographs. Okay, said like this... Who the h*ll's Tyen? Well... he's that creative guy who has been designing and deciding which colours are in and which out on your face for the next season for the last thirty-freaking-years! At DIOR's make-up house. Design director, photographer, master of colour.

His key to success:“I don’t think about trends. Just about how women can be beautiful — and comfortable.” His moto: “Make-up is a final touch; a bit of camouflage to say, ‘I’m healthy, I’m happy and I love you.”

Casa Daniella

Here is another nice appartment by the seaside, in Sabaudia, (near Rome). This time I had a little bit more time to take some good shoots of the place, as the owner, friend of our's, invited us to stay there for a couple of days. The house is really big: three really spacey bedrooms, two bathrooms, a studio, a big living/dining room and a kitchen. The owners used to live there once but after transferring themselves into a smaller house, they still decided to keep it, as it was very comfortable for spending some nice weekends together with the whole family (the traditional italian way of spending holidays does not exist without bringing your cousins, your mother and father in-laws, your own parents with their parents, your sisters and brothers and both their families with their friends, your own children, their boyfriends and girlfriends with dogs and cats in the end.. all TOGETHER!) In fact it really was very comfortable.

This is the corridor, the entrance is on the left.

The house had not had any makeovers since it was bought and decorated back in the late 70's. For me it was exotic and I liked it, as I love almost everything that's got a retro touch. You could breathe vintage all over the place: the typical seventies safari style was mixed with the traditional classical italian house decor. Maybe there were some things that I would have changed, like some paintings and objects that were too much or didn't go in with the style AT ALL, but in the end almost everything worked.

This is the part of the living-room where you can dine and have breakfast.


The mirror was fantastic- it illusionally made the room much bigger.

I found out that it wasn't so specially designed house at all, as every italian house about thirty years ago had this kind of a vibe and decor, and the young generation infact is really tired of it and desires much more minimalistic and light style for their (summer)houses. (Maybe that's the reason why IKEA is so popular in Italy).
Still.. I adored the house. I felt good there, it's amazing what big cozy spaces can do with you in two days.

Living-room.

For example, I didn't like the painting above the sofa, it doesn't fit a bit, exept for the colours.

This marble plate table was really beautiful.

The apartment is now available for renting: you can get all the information by emailing mvmbdicesare@gmail.com

Shooting Rome

The other day I went to take some pictures of the city center, Rome. Our plans were big: to shoot Colosseo, Fori Imperiali, Piazza Venezia and maybe a little bit of Tevere (the river), but we didn't get further than 200 metres from the Colosseo. There is actually a really nice park, on one of the seven hills on which Rome was founded- on the Colle Oppio. That's one of the hills, on which the famous Domus Aurea- Golden House (click to read more on wiki), the emperor Nero's "home" (80 hectares) was situated once.

This is a quite cool shoot I took of my friend Gabriele, as he was walkng down the stairs - could make a good ad for the jeans, don't you think?

You could feel the autumn in the air. Although it was hot- about 29 degrees it still wasn't the same as in the summertime. And even the flowers were getting yellow.

De Architectura (or better, ABC of architecture)

Today was this year's first architecture lesson and our teacher gave us immediately an assigment- we have to project a house. So basically using all the knowledge we got last year we should be able to project a house what's not only suitable for living but also practical and aesthetically satisfying. And there's the catch. Everybody's able to draw a house with a big kitchen connected to a cozy living-room, with their dream bathroom and a pimpy garage all connected by a corridor and ending with a terrace with a small romantical back-yard. It's the combination of smart functionality and harmonical volumes that makes a simple sketch on the paper a masterpiece. And that's... well something not so easy to do. So before going on with the project I wanted to resee the aims of architecture in the first place. One of the most precise definitions ever given on a question "what IS architecture?" was by an antic roman engineer Vitruvio (read about!). Three factors are the basis of architecture:

1. firmitas (steadiness)
2. utilitas (utility)
3. venustas (beauty)

- from De Architectura (click! for more), the only contemporary source on classical architecture survived entirely.

The Vitruvian man, figure that is familiar even for a ten year old kid (I hope). And as some assume, it wasn't Leonardo Da Vinci's invention. It became famous during the Renaissance thanks to Leonardo Da Vinci who studyed carefully Vitruvio's De Architectura, and got fond with the symmetrical human figure, rappresenting the Proportions of Man.

In other words we're talking about the mix of structrual, functional and aesthetical qualities - without steadiness the structure won't resist; without utility the structure is just a sculture; and in the absence of beauty we can only talk about "a structure", not about architecture, seen as art. (this is what Pevsner, Le corbusier and Ruskin have always talked about.) And it's not hard to understand the theorical part, but it's the practical side which needs exercising. Oh yees... So I'm gonna go and try to figure out from where to start.

Finally - the Bulgari retrospective!

So finally, after three months of planning I managed to see the Bulgari exhibition with my own eyes. I did a careful research about it and posted here about two months ago (click!). And guys.... that is definitelly something worth seeing in your life, twice if you can! Too bad that the exhibition is finishing on the 13th of September, that is on Sunday. The Palazzo degli Esposizioni was perfect for this exhibition as, thanks to it's different articulated rooms (on the piano nobile), the division of the Bulgari creations in eight different monumental galleries gave a perfect picture of the Maison's evolution through time.

And, like a cherry on top of the cake, the visitor's final destination is in the central rotonda, where the Bulgari's finest, most precious and exclusive creations of the new millenium are exposed. It's almost impossible to find pictures of the exhibition itself (deep inside I hoped that maybe taking pictures was alloud so I brought my camera with me.. but "hey-are-you-joking-or-something!?" was written on the face of the gallery's keeper, when I asked so.. no pics from me.) But here are some I found (after a loooooong search). I should name the photographer to: Filippo Monteforte, a roman photojournalist who makes part of the Italian national news and photo agency "ANSA".

I liked the interiors a lot, quite cleverly invented- black walls and lightening based on purple-red-orange colour nuances made the whole thing so dark, secretive and magical, something that well goes with the jewellery world.

The quotations said by famous people like Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and other weren't traditionally written just on the walls but also on the floor and different surprising places. That was original. The nicest one was by Andy Warhol - he announced that visiting Bulgari shop in Rome was like a trip to a contemporary art museum (in the 70's). Infact the jewellery from that period was much inspired to Pop Art and hippy-flowery-powery-movement.

I personally appreciated the first creations (twenties and thirthies) of the jewellery house the most, by Sotirio Bulgari himself. And ofcourse, remarkable were the serpentini-watches, the one that Liz wore on Cleopatra set for example was... undescribable!!!