Fashion of Art. From 2010 the philosophy of “fashion of Art” started to spread. The most popular brands diversified their communication strategies incorporating other worlds, making them compatible with fashion. One of the first coexistences of art and design is the glass and steel  slide designed by Carsten Holler for Prada Milan headquarter. Among the most recent there are Dolce & Gabbana’s haute-couture (in Naples) and Alta Sartoria Uomo (in Palermo) fashion shows: they chose two art cities, not “fashion” cities, like Milan or Paris. But let’s consider the “tradition of fashion” and fashion in the strict sense and ask ourselves what will remain of this decade 2010/20.  The phenomenon of the millenials will go down in history; the innovation is not the proposal of a harmonious masculine/feminine and feminine/masculine ideal that has already existed from Jim Morrison on, and that was resumed by Hedi Slimane in 2000: the innovation is in the extraordinary ostentation that, translated in numbers, has taken Gucci back to the top of the most sold brands. Hats off to Alessandro Michele. In the end, in memories will remain the multitude of accessories that has supported and supports fashion’s budgets. Little-great pieces of contemporary art, from eyewear to shoes and bags.

Unforgettable. Giacomo Ferrara, 27 years old, before Suburra – The Series had already acted in the namesake movie directed by Stefano Sollima as supporting actor. Then we’ve seen him in Il permesso by Amendola and in Il Contagio with Vinicio Marchioni. But with The Series he has established himself as one of the greatest talents of italian cinema. Ferrara’s power in playing the part of Spadino is really great, a character that is bad but not so bad, with a noticeable “problem” for a criminal from a ruthless gypsy family that fights to obtain its part of territory in a very corrupted capital: he’s homosexual. Ferrara’s Spadino is one of those characters that lingers in everyone’s memory: he’s unforgettable. Unforgettable just like – I don’t overstate – De Niro in Taxi Driver. So much that he deserved an article on Financial Times.

Signature Pinstripe. Alfred Hitchcok filmed Suspicion in 1941, almost half a century before the invention of the technologies that today allow to create the glorified special effects. There’s a very famous scene, full of suspense, with Cary Grant bringing a glass of milk up the stairs to his wife – interpreted by Joan Fontaine. I leave in doubt who hasn’t watched the movie: the milk could be poisoned. And that glass, declared the filmmaker to Francois Truffaut in a book-interview, had the role of “illuminating the scene”; to obtain the effect he wanted, he used a very simple but effective trick: the glass contained a light bulb. The other stage lighting and the setting create a very fascinating play of geometries and symmetries: the stairs, the paintings, the column, the stripes and the lapels of Grant’s suit, the skylight’s structure that projects a cage-shaped shadow on the wall. An unmissable classic of one of the most famous and less appreciated by americans (at that time) angloamerican directors.

His name’s Scott. The relationship between Larry Paul Scott as a model and as an artist is like that between Sean Connery and James Bond: like Connery has never succeeded in getting free from Bond, so Larry can’t purge him from the image of his face on the first campaign of Acqua di Giò. Then you search for him on Google and you find out that last June in Spain, in Girona, he has carried out his first photography exhibition. Scott’s photography is only in black and white, he has portrayed real people, focusing on the glamour and the trash of the nightlife of New York City, but I prefer his triptychs composed by nature, human beings and architectures, that emphasize perfection, beauty and nature. On Instagram, that by now is the most important agency for photographers in the world, you can find him as @larrypaulscott. Maybe we’ll see him again posing for fashion magazines, but as a talent, no more as a top model or, as he prefers to be defined, as an “ex top model”. Because today Larry is a great artist that deserves to be followed carefully.

Upside Down. I fell in love with the artworks of Andrea Collesano 7 years ago: they were exhibited in the Art Gallery of Barbara Paci in Pietrasanta. It was love at first sight because when I was a child I was obsessed by whales and sea bottoms; i used to draw many, many of them… however, I wouldn’t be able to become an Artist! Collesano, instead, is an Artist. He’s still very young, he lives and works in Forte dei Marmi in a house-laboratory with a very wild garden. And with a cat. In spite of his youth, he’s already known internationally. He transfers his imaginary world and its symbolisms in his artworks, made with ink on aged paper. Whales are his passion but he also draws lots of other animals. And palm trees. Palm trees underwater, surrounded by frogs and seahorses, in a surreal, charming and poetic world, with a gentle hand; a world that turns upside down the biological rules of animal and vegetal life. Next step: sculptures. Made of bronze. I went and visit him and I saw them: and I fell in love again.