Feminine Masculine. Feminine/Masculine, Masculine/Feminine. Magazines have talked about this for years, fashion and show biz have represented it for decades. Art for centuries. The most discussed and bickered Sanremo Music Festival of the century bet a lot on the character/artist Achille Lauro: his look and his musical touch (the fact that he mantained the feminine version singing the cover of Mia Martini didn’t go unnoticed) entered the houses provoking dizzy spells on one side and jubilation on the other. If a message needs to be perceived and felt, it has to be screamed. The exploit of the Roman rapper won’t change the popular mind. Good job, anyway: it was a good message of change; we’ve really entered the era of the years to come. Like it or not, let’s take note. We’ve to metabolize the change or we’ll bound to get old prematurely.

The eternal set. It’s one of the iconic architectures of the capital. The Palace of Italian Civilization, in the Eur, restored by Fendi and headquarter of the maison from October 2015, includes also a space for exhibitions and public events. This is one of the many international sociocultural procedures about communication between fashion, architecture, art. The building was designed between 1936 and 1937, and finished in 1940, for the Universal Exposition that never took place. From the “peplum” to The Last Kiss by Muccino, the building and its surroundings have been the set for hundreds of movies. About the picture I chose, the great book Eur, si gira, by Laura Delli Colli, says: “For the fellinian episode “The temptation of Dr Antonio” in Boccaccio ’70, the filmmaker imagined a busty Ekberg on the advertising billboard “Drink more milk”. It had to be only a picture, but during the making of the movie, Fellini changed his mind and wanted Anita in the flesh”.

Blue tie. The tribute by Giovanni Gastel to Richard Avedon, for Style Magazine (2010). “Severe” light, off-white background. The models’ action counterposes the solemnity of the tribute of a great photographer to a popular predecessor. The models, like they’re dancing, seem not to care about the mess they create in the clothes: the movements dissolve the severity of a normally impeccable attire as the tuxedo is. Out of the fashion sets, in real life, we can imagine a similar ease choosing a different way of “wearing the evening”: for example, breaking black with blue.

La campagna Xacus 2012, realizzata a New York da Francesco Carrozzini, celebra il bacio interpretandolo come un atto eterno, semplice e spontaneo. Come, a suo modo, lo è la camicia.

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