Giovanna Villani.
Artist, Shoes and leather goods designer
Ethical fashion designer,
International cooperation expert
Preface
In order to give a three dimensional account of what I have done up to this date, I made a list – in chrononological order – of where I have been, lived, worked, learned and taught.
I worked and travelled a lot. Such great variety of cultural/professional experiences in so many foreign countries, spread out in the world, at this point stands out to me as the crucial element of the development and application of my creative capabilities and acquired skills in the field of fashion design and specifically of accessory design.
The practical knowledge and aesthetic vocabulary I have acquired is the sum of being and working in those places and relating to all those people. My curiosity and motivation is to continue on this path, no matter how slowly or how fast.
Each item on the list takes you to a paragraph that describes the specific situation. Overuling the contemporary dictat of brevity, I wrote as much as would convince me that i gave a sufficiently rounded impression of each episode. I have also included some reference links and a brief photo gallery. On the other hand, anyone who wants to skim through and get the main facts, can skip all the regular text and just read the bold.
Index
1959 Milano
1969 Deep River Ontario, Canada
1972 Milano
1978 La Jolla San Diego, California
1982 New York
1989 Milano
1992 Tokyo
1997 Taipei
2000 Milano
2004 Sumirago Varese, Italy
Milano
I was born on march 14th. This was indeed the most revolutionary action I undertook in my life untill I myself crouched down at age 35 and allowed for my daughter Maria to take her turn at being born.
When I look back at it, my coming into the world, some times I regret it angrily but often times I feel so utterly connected to that day and to that feeling, as if it were today. So much for hearing “it’s like you’re born yesterday”. Actually I was born today, this morning, and hopefully I will be born again tomorrow!
I came into an upper middle class family in the baby boom years in the booming northern city in Italy. My father was a promising nuclear physicist, my mother was a flamboyant housewife after having been a novel writer for a few years.
But two of my grandparents turned out significant for my development as a creative person.
My mom’s father – Bruno Angoletta – who died before I was born – had been a renoun illustration artist, satirist and early cartoonist. I suppose my inclination towards the visual arts… and humor, comes from that very DNA. I have his wooden paintbox now, after 90 yrs some of the oil tubes are still soft and a couple of his guaches are framed over my bed.
And my dad’s mom- Maria Lican- with whom I spent many of my sad childhood days. She was a luxury lingerie maker. She had a sort of small business and made the bridal trunks for the ladies of the Italian bourgeoisie. She had amazing personal style and chic, though she came from a large essentially rural family in what is now Slovenia. She wore the quilted Chanel bags with chain and always only mid heels. Cashmere twin sets and chanel N19 perfume, because N5 was too common. She bought Vogue Italia and oftenVogue France and together we would make comments on the sometime nasty outfit combinations published.
She was my basis for my jobs in the fashion world twenty years later. She taught me all the basics about cutting and fine handsewing, how to distinguish precious laces and recognize different silks. She taught me embroidery. Yes of course my dolls were always dressed like princesses. And princesses with long hair and gowns I would draw with colored pencils as a means to survive my sorrow when I was lonely and hurt hiding inside my toy closet.
Deep River Ontario (Canada)
Ten years down the line, my dad packed up the family- at this point I had acquired a sister – and we shipped ourselves literally on an actual ship – a transatlantic – to a dreamworld village on the banks of the Ottawa River amidst wild woods and what was for me a kind and multicultural society. Living in Canada for almost 3 years was transforming. It showed me a completely different life was possible. Creative activities in nature and with kindness.
No more daily persecutions in the dark city apartment, finished the tedious mornings stuck at the desk in a turn-of-the-century classroom where the one teacher – who crocheted her own winter coats and whose bright lipstick expanded beyond the contour of her lips- scolded the poor and flattered the well to do.
Away with fear of death and annihilation. Replaced by biking on the trail in the morning to a modern all-day school surrounded by lawns, trees, sports facilities, where we could be active with zillions of attractive activities such as sports, sewing, life drawing and pottery. Dances and proms in the gym. Trecks in the woods where you could see dear and beaver and amazingly tall ferns, canoeing and sailing on the wide river in summer and skiing and snow shoeing in the winter.
I learned English as if it were my own native tongue, I loved Halloween and Thanks Giving. I was good at drawing and making things and I liked it. My art teacher recognized this about me and spoke with my family.
Milano
Back to Milano from Canada. Very unhappy about that! From freedom of wild country, far from the powwows of the First Nations and their lovely beaded dearskin moccasins, back to the stifling old-world city populated by a youth that was torn by the world-wide crisis after ’68 police violence and riots. I was in the middle of the mess.
Got my classical studies diploma at Lyceum Parini, where my dad had gone to school, had to learn Latin and Greek, didn’t make any sense but stayed away from drugs and managed to finish up one year early so I could leave that place and be gone.
The following year after highschool I was on the Mediterranean, aboard a Greek kaiko where my boyfriend was fishing sponge to be sold to NASA. We sailed from Sicily to Tunisia and finally to Greece where the sponge had to be delivered. This was an amazing and enriching experience though pretty tough for the crude lifestyle on the primitive comfortless boat.
La Jolla, San Diego (California)
Time to get serious and here again my dad – who was also my fairy-godmother – sends me to University of California San Diego where I achieve my MA in Visual Arts Studio in less than 4 years and start painting in my studio as a daily activity. The college years at UC were some of the best of my life and a great privilege. The faculty at the university was remarkable.
Southern California in those years was still very free and natural. The beaches were out of this world. The desert, rather than the maze of condos and malls of the present day, was the background of highway 1, all the way to the Mexican border where Tijuana was our affordable lobster and fish market other than an enchanting theatre of folkloristic music, song and dance. Never my life was mellower than in S. California at the end of the seventies and beginning 80’s.
Just after finishing college, while still in S.Diego I worked as a piecemeal seamstress modifying T-shirts for a local artist. I was very fast and I enjoyed the handwork. I had bought an expensive reconditioned Bernina sewing machine which I still own, after all this time and with which I do all my sewing projects without fail. Some pieces of amazing equipment in your life acquire the status of a human being! I was in California untill 1983.
New York
In 1983 I moved from mellow California to the big apple because I was accepted to the MFA Fine Arts Program at SVA (School of Visual Arts). I had a studio at SVA for the year I spent at the program, among others my teachers were Elizabeth Murray, Sandro Chia, Lucio Pozzi. The point was that being in NY and doing art in those years was more than enough to make you feel like you were at the center of the world. New York made me feel like I had always been there. It was like being in the right place at the right time.
Evenings I was working as a flower designer/arranger at the flower shop at the Peer 17 shop and painting every day in my studio. It was a very exciting life and very nice people around me. Eventually I was getting sick a lot working with cold water and the draughts coming into the flower shop so I had to find a different job and at the end of 1984 I became first assistant to SUSANBENNISANDWARRENEDWARDS. I had always had a weekness for shoes and at Susan and Warren’s I learned much of what there was to know about fancy super luxury Italian made shoes. They definitely were the fanciest, most glamorous brand of shoes in the US at that time. Several of their models (including some of mine done for them) are now part of the Met permanent fashion collection.
I sketched and colored shoes and little bags all day, I communicated with the factories in Italy. It was plush! I was with them for about two years and thus started a specific career for myself that carried me up to the present. Shoe design. In those years and untill much later there were no courses for accessory design at fashion institutes and the specialized professionals, such as myself were very few. My reputation with SBWE lead me to a prestigious position at PERRY ELLIS INTL in 1985 where I became their shoe designer for the COUTURE collection as well as for PORTFOLIO (bridge collection), later on also for COUTURE bags and MEN’S COUTURE SHOES.
I designed in the 7th Ave. headquarters and often travelled to several factories in different regions in Italy for the women’s shoes and for the bags, to Churche’s in London for the men’s shoes. Perry Ellis, like the other top US designer brands of those years, such as Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, Jeoffrey Beene, was a very structured company with tears of merchandisers, product managers, line builders, brand managers, working within each label and all these roles were somewhat interdependant so that the resulting products were very controlled and the method was ‘scientific’.
Other than hundreds of models, I designed and developed dozens of new lasts and heels each season, choose materials and designed and developed accessories and followed uo on the prototype development. We were flown first class to Paris each season to buy samples and look around. Life was glam but intensely busy because I worked for PE full time while continuing my own art work in my studio during weekends and evenings.
Milano
At the end of 1988, family issues prompted me to return to Milano where I continued to work for Perry Ellis Intl. untill 1990, but with Marc Jacobs as creative director, after Perry’s death.
I was often traveling back to NY but having Italy as my base. In 1989 I turned thirty, I was still active in painting and I was longing for a deeper meaning and hopefully a social cause in my professional life.
I thought maybe I could become an art therapist. Between 1990 and 1991 for one year I have studied art therapy at ART THERAPY ITALIANA and practiced art therapy during internships with psychiatric patients in several structures both public and private.
But in January 1991, I was lured back into fashion world by an offer from TODS. The task was very compelling. I was in charge of the restyling of the women’s shoe collection called Diego della Valle. I was heading the design studio in Milano and steared the style towards a more sporty design course in line with the success of Tod’s.
This job reinstated me for good into the course of my accessory design career. I cultivated art therapy studies on the side, along with my personal art work until my late fourties and this practice has remained at the core of many of my ethical design projects later on.
In May of 1992 I happily became designer for all MOSCHINO Cheap and Chic accessory collections for the Japanese market. These were licenced collections.
I had been a fan of FRANCO MOSCHINO for a long time before, because of the unique humor of his style and his dedication to social causes. Maybe not many remember that Franco Moschino became famous through mocking the fashion world and the fashion victim attitudes while he was investing most of his income to support children’s hospital in Rumania and fund a drug abusers community in Italy. He was my hero and I loved working for him. He was always ahead of the others even when -near the end of his short life- he drove the brand into researching sustainable and echological materials and tecniques.
He was the very first high profile luxury brand to have such concerns and after his death, the company was back on regular tracks because at that time it was still hard to find sustainable eco-friendly materials and the new management didn’t feel the importance of his vision at that point. My overall engagement with the MOSCHINO fashion house lasted for 12 years.
Tokyo
Between 1992 and 2001 as designer for Moschino’s licenced accesssories I had the fortune of traveling to Japan twice a year to meet with the licencee companies. The range of collections was wide: women’s shoes, handbags, small leather goods, lingerie and bathing suits, nightwear, towels, scarves, gloves, hats, umbrellas, bijoux…can’t remember them all. For each collection a separate licencee company mainly based in Tokyo, some in Kyoto.
The amazing part of this job was surely not designing Moschino towels or hats for the Japanese market- though that part was fun and easy- but being in Japan and working with the Japanese. This was an immersion in a culture so different than what I knew in Europe or the US, this was really a different world and with such aesthetic richness and beauty from the antique to the modern, from the traditional to the most contemporary. It was like a people who lived in a far away cerimonial past at the same time as in the most advanced futuristic present.
A long time has passed since I was there but my memory of that time is still so alive. The licencee companies guided us on extensive tours of all the department stores where they sold the Moschino collections so we could inspect the products, their placement and presentation and in the evenings they invited us to feast at the best restaurants and I came to know about the peculiar culinary wonders that are not comparable when exported outside of Japan along with the amazing styles of the restaurants and table wares.
The local food markets with dozens of types of miso, dozens of tofu, the traditional prints and papers and decorated bowls….the temples with their gongs and bells and ceremonies, the gardens with carp ponds, the beginning of the varoius Japanese brands that later became global, such as UNIQLO, MUJI, the teenagers in their outrageous Harajuku style costumes, the shinkansen like a bullet on a single rail and of course the blooming of the cherry trees. I was there to partake of all of that. But the people, the people amazed me…a perfect row of employees in dark uniform with white gloves in a precise straight line, bowing simultaneously at the departure of the bus from the bus station…a choreography unlike real life for us from the west.
Taipei
During my long life at Moschino I received a request from CIDA/CHINESE INDUSTRIAL DESIGNERS ASSOCIATION in Taipei to teach an intensive one week seminar about western style in handbag design for their handbag manufacturers members.
I had never taught before and I travelled all the way to Taiwan for my first teaching role. It was a 40 hours course and it was so well received they asked me again for the next year 1998. On this occasion too, I felt that I received more than I gave. I exchanged my knowledge of handbag styles with an amazing exploration of an oriental city on an island, its people and culture. Was taken around to see things and shows and workshops and artisans…my hosts were happy to have me there from Italy and were keen to show me as much as they could of their art and design.
This is the amazing attitude that has come up just about every time I have been at a project abroad. The people are grateful you are there and take pride in showing you about themselves as much as possible. It’s huge learning!
Milano
When in January 2002 the licenceee business in Japan was discontinued (it ended for all brands because by that time it had became affordable to export the original made in Italy collections), I was aked to start the MOSCHINO JEANS handbags collection: I took on this job and I worked on handbags untill 2004 when I parted with Moschino to work on the Missoni brand. The Jeans collection was young and a lot of fun, I could really express myself, much more that with our Japanese clients. I was working with several different suppliers both in Italy and abroad.
The point about working at Moschino was that it grouped the nicest people in fashion that I have ever met. Working in that studio was a bliss, much unlike for other collegues at other brands. Though we were all hard working and serious in our undertaking, there always was a clear understanding of what the real values were in life. ‘Love’ was the brand’s keyword and it was both just a catch for the commercial world and a real meaning for us inside.
Sumirago (Varese, Italy)
My ‘Moschino life’ ended in May 2004. It was time to move on, Franco had died a long time before, I felt the need to become more independent, have my own studio, have different clients.
The opportunity came through an offer from Missoni to design their couture collections of shoes and handbags. I had appreciated this brand because of it’s original and strongly identifiable Raschel loom knit motifs and the amazing color combinations and the fact that their garments seemed to be timeless and not depending on the seasonal fashion trends. It was also a real challenge to create successful accessories starting from a fine yarn jersey type fabric. I worked with the best materials and interesting advanced tecniques of textile coating.
It was quite a shock for me to find a small, family owned and run company, behind the large fame and notoriety of the brand. Along with the beautiful garments that were done on looms, there was something totally old world about the company set-up. It was like living in the seventies perhaps also because the company’s headquarters was in a small provincial area near Varese and all the staff, except for designers, was coming from around there, not a big city. Kind of an Italian Downton Abbey.
I was with them for only two years due to my larger engagement with the Greek company FOLLIFOLLIE.
Athens
My consultancy for Folli Follie in Athens started in 2004 only a few months after I had started working with Missoni and it lasted over eight years untill 01/2013.
I was their designer for handbags and small leather goods and some costume jewelry as well.
I was traveling from Milano to Athens to present the designs and then to Hong Kong office to meet suppliers and search for materials and then to Shenzen factories to check samples and productions.
Affordable luxury was their USP and definitely they were one of the first brands that could achieve a luxury look at a low cost. It’s easier to design when you have no cost limitations, you just need to strive for the most striking result, but when you are trying to do something similar but with a very low production budget, it gets interesting. It means you have to search for alternative materials that will have the appeal, a low cost but that will also perform pretty well because you can’t afford the brand to lose credibility with products that fail technically. It can get brain racking, it’s like a chess game. And somewhat addictive.
During my long relationship with the company owners, I was appreciated and trusted and enjoyed a lot of freedom. I could spend time in the jewelry workshop to make my own prototypes, propose all kinds of projects. Later on I was able to raise their interest for the ‘ethical design’ projects and the Braghetterosse brand I started in 2008. I had high hopes that they would support or participate in these in some way but it didn’t happen in the end. The owners were a very nice, energetic and enthusiastic couple but ultimately I was not able to involve them in a social cause.
Hong Kong
2004-2012 During my consultancy with FOLLIFOLLIE I was traveling to the Hong Kong office to develop the collections, search for and meet suppliers and search for materials and then to Shenzen factories to check samples and productions. Also visiting the many stores in HK, China and Macao to advise on product display and check with relevant sales personnel about client feedbacks.
Work and field research was very intense during my trips. I spent days searching through the massive material suppliers district in Kowloon which was itself an amazing ethnic experience. Tons of fabric swatches and buttons, clips, buckles, studs, threads and zipper samples gathered, in that hot and humid climate and often under tropical torrential rainfalls. Going to China to see the factories was a short train trip along the Pearl River delta to the border and there crossing with the tough faces of the border staff. All those people coming and going across the border showing their visas. Many people were on similar jobs as myself.
The industrial sites on the outskirts of Shenzen were pretty saddening for me. Tens of thousands of silent workers at their machines on huge factory floors. Next to the factories, their clothes hanging to dry on racks attached to the window gates of their dormitories, dozens of thousands of shirts and pants hanging out from windows for many floors up. There seemed to be no landscape around this. Just flat. I can’t forget this. It seemed like nothing but work for very long turns, also after dinner and into the night. Hopefully things have changed now.
At the time, Chinese fashion products were ‘cold’ , they were easily recognizable for a lack of depth and most manufacturing details were very standardized, skins very pigmented and colors rarely alive. Part of my effort in overseeing the development went to inventing details that would pull the products out of this flatness.
Manufacturing has since evolved quite a bit.
I eventually found time during weekends in HK to take some tours out of the city and discover a number of surprising places and interesting situations. Places where it was finally visible we were on the South China Sea and that Chinese folk religions were at the base of that society. It has always bewildered me how it is that extremely rich oriental cultures are so fascinated with western aesthetics.
Padova
Once the Missoni job was through I took on MALIPARMI shoes and bags in February of 2007, a small creative brand from Padova.
This company was less demanding than Missoni and I was able to manage it designing from my studio in Milano and going to Padova from time to time.
I enjoyed making shoes for them because I got to make new experience with factories from Riviera del Brenta. This is one of the places where shoemaking has a tradition of excellence in Italy and the artisan skills are very good.
Maliparmi style was based on decorative tecniques on fairly simple basis so it was quite fun and easy. Part of the handbag collection was sourced in India and indeed we took an extravagant trip to India to visit our suppliers and search the markets for trims and fabrics. What feast! It was my first work trip in India and it made me realize how much deeper into the culture of society you get when you have work to do there and with the people there.
However fun the perks of this work, my willingness to spend myself with western fashion brands was fading. I felt like I needed to give something more. My growing concerns with ethical and sustainability issues made it more and more difficult for me to dedicate so much time and energy to companies that had only profit as their main objective.
I remember at one point I told myself ‘ I hope that one day I can stop working for company profits and make myself useful in some African country, or where there is really a need’. I thought I could teach English or take care of children… I had no idea I could be useful in developing countries using my own expansive professional experience, I didn’t know anything about international cooperation, at that point.
Addis Ababa (Ethiopia)
So it was that out of the blue I got a call from a collegue from my Perry Ellis years who wanted to propose me for a UNIDO (UNITED NATIONS INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION) project based in Addis, Ethiopia where the call was to design a leather collection of handbags for a new Ethiopian brand called TAYTU that would be well received in the upper end US market. This project was co-funded by US AID.
This opportunity changed my life. So it was that I was going to be payed to use my skills, talents and experience in accessory design to do a project in Africa. It lasted three years from 06-2008 to 05-2011 and it was a very nice success because the collection was showcased at D&A in NY and was bought by Barneys New York for several seasons.
I can’t describe how extensive the benefits for me were, other than monetary. It is true, it is not at all easy to work in developing countries where infrastructures and resources are so limited or disfunctional. It’s hard to find any material, black-outs are every day and many times a day to disrupt the day’s production schedule, roads might be blocked and places unreachable but the human factor, the desire and ethusiasm of the people, mostly youngsters who participate to these projects are most inspiring and fully rewarding. Observing their creativity in overcoming problems and finding solutions for lack of tools, materials etc. is unmatched. Seeing the level to which those people recycle and have always recycled -not as the latest fad- everything and anything is quite a lesson.
In 2008 I funded my own ethical design brand BRAGHETTEROSSE. I wanted to turn art into consumer products and my thinking was that the ethical projects behind the product collections was going to be the work of art itself. Ethiopia for the time being was the place where the initial projects were devised, in continuity with the UNIDO experience and with the brand TAYTU.
I generated the Papagoochi Bags and the Mamamilk Bags, both of which were selected by Vogue Italia special promotion of African fair trade brands in collaboration with Yoox online fashion retail platform that put them on the market.
I worked extra hard at these projects that have helped young artisand to develop their workshops and other disadvantaged groups that worked in connection with these products by providing some of their characteristic parts.
I had these bags and baggies for sale in some of the nice shops in Milano and Rome as well as in Japan, through a venture partner who had seen my website and for a couple of years started and managed Braghetterosse Japan. The momentum was good up untill my local partner in Addis had to move to another country, making it financially unsustainable for me to travel back and forth to Ethiopia to check on new sampling and production. She could not be replaced. ‘People do make the difference’ and ‘one cannot carry on an enterprise alone’ was the learning.
Ankara (Turkey)
I was looking for venture partners for my Braghetterosse. During summer of 2010 I met a bright young woman Caterina Occhio who was working for European Commission in assessing international cooperation projects funding. She had been long looking for an opportunity to join an ethical design project and asked me to be partner in Bragheterosse.
She was at that time working in Turkey with SEED Foundation (NL) on a project for domestic violence eradication in partnership with the Turkish gov. and asked me to join the project as consultant designer with my brand. While the project was providing for a shelter for women victim of domestic violence and training personel to host them, my task was to create a collection of branded accessories (DOVE – domestic violence eradication) with a group of women victims.
The women were organized to come and work in a day center. My task was to asses their manual and creative capabilities and use these to guide them to create products that could be vehicled to the international consumer market with the added value that they provided income to the women. So between september 2010 and May 2011 we spent time in Ankara with the women’s group working on their fine crochet techniques and also traveled with them to Tokat (Anatolia) to follow a wood-block print workshop given by Ahmed one of the masters of this ancient trade.
The resulting Dove collection was named ALL MEN ARE MADE BY WOMEN and included an original selection of men’s bow ties, jewelry items, wood-block printed totes and t-shirts. Further on Caterina formed her own fair trade company called SEE_ME, making heart shaped jewelry with a group of women in Tunisia.
Milano
During 2011 I was asked by Pangea Onlus to create some exceptional bags to be auctioned out during Pangea fund raising event to raise funds to help women of Kabul. (Pangea ALL IN ONE).
I invented SUPERBAGS with Braghetterosse logo that were achieved by deconstructing used branded original handbags and luggage and recombining the parts with logos from different designers such as Gucci, Fendi, Luis Vuitton, Burberry into brand new and suprising bags.
Shanghai / Shenzhen
2013-2014
It’s been quite a while since new Chinese fashion brands are sourcing design consultants in Italy. It was one of the new professional fronteers for european fashion designers. From early 2013 I was hired by a specialized agency to design womens shoes and handbag collections for two labels belonging to YINGER FASHION GROUP with headquarters in Shenzhen.
and in 2014 for EP (ELEGANT & PROSPER) with headquarters in Shanghai.
So I found myself right back in similar development and production facilities as for Folli Follie. I designed in my own studio in Milano and then travelled to China to oversee the prototypes. The taste level of the fashion consumer was more traditional and formal than in Europe hence designing was the task of interpreting what the consumer might appreciate rather than creating something new or surprising. On the other hand the companies were well organized, young and fast, serious and hard working.
One of the interesting aspects I observed is how this huge country with a very strict political regime background is getting wealthy, actually very wealthy and softening up to interpret ‘luxury’ and ‘lifestyle’ concepts coming from the west that are very foreign to that society. As it had been for Japan before they became capable to embrace their own cultural background and create greatness in fashion design. One could observe that in China – in art- this empowerment is already happening but only just beginning in the ‘applied arts’ such as fashion design. One crucial fact is how fast the sector is developing. Looking back to just a few years ago, the scenario has much improved and expanded enormously.
A new consultancy started for me in 2019 for the Chinese owned LM AGNESE brand totally designed and developed in Italy.
Milano
In September 2014 I started teaching Shoe Design to the fifth year (Specialty School) of Politecnico Fashion Design Dept. along with an annual master’s course for Poli Design.
This has been an ongoing apointment which has allowed me the invaluable experience to meet with the very new generations. Since I teach the international class in English I get to meet young prospective designers from all over the world. Politecnico is the highest ranking public institution in the country and the academic level is high. In 2020 I started teaching shoe design also for NABA ( Nuova Accademia delle Belle Arti) in Milano as well.
Singapore
This was a design consultancy for a local brand from Singapore Tocco Toscano that lasted a couple of seasons and culminated with the company participating with the handbag collection to Singapore Digital Fashion week.
‘…the final touch with an emerald green handbag that screams, “I AM IT.” As the show progresses, other pieces add to this trompe l’oeiltheme …which should come as no surprise considering the newly-appointed artistic director, Mrs. Giovanna Villani, who is Italian. Moreover, after having had the experience of seeing the creations come to life on stage, and then speaking with Villani, who has a trajectory of nearly 30 years working with household names such as Moschino and Missoni, what was most impressive was her warmth, candor and eagerness to emphasize the success of the collection as a direct result of the artisanal techniques, craftsmanship and personal involvement of all the people behind the brand, not just herself. Hence, illustrating how elegance is not just in the clothes but also in the gesture.’
The experience there was peculiar as the people stand out for their typical asian kindness, demureness, gentleness while the place is both tropical and high tech.
Milano
April 8th to 13th Milano Design Week- MY AFRICAN KITCHEN– Project designed and developed by Braghetterosse for NGO VITEINTORNO working for communities in TOGO to establish and implement domestic sewing workshops.
A working pub installation was designed within the Circolo ACLI to vehicle a collection of textile products of accessories and home furnishing items also designed by Braghetterosse made with wax batik fabrics and fashioned by Punto e Croce ( tailoring workshop NGO by CROCEROSSA ITALIANA). Students and faculty from fashion institute Caterina da Siena were also involved in crafting some of the items exhibited and in running the pub during the show week.
Lahore/ Karachi (Pakistan)
Through Linkedin I was contacted by PITCO Private L.td a company in Lahore who had won a large EU grant for the implementation of Pakistan Leather Competitiveness Improvement Program (PLCIP): Cities involved: Lahore (Punjab Province), Sialkot (Punjab Province), Karachi (Sindh Province). After we met in Milano in December 2014, I was hired as consultant for design and training and a couple of weeks later I travelled to Pakistan for my first assessment mission.
The complex project description includes this paragraph that describes part of my role: ‘For the capacity building, the in situ hands on training approach under supervision of foreign consultants will be adopted, resulting in positive evaluations of business development services/vocational educational training services by the beneficiary LP Firms. The benefit of the improved BDS/VET will be their improved competitiveness (quality of products, design, prices), resulting in their compliance with international market access requirements.
During the three years this project lasted I have made trips to Pakistan every two months spending two or three weeks in Lahore and other cities, working with numerous private companies and extensively as TOT (trainer of teachers) as well as directly with students at PIFD (Pakistan Institute of Fashion Design). During the later phases of the project I contributed to update and upgrade their course curriculum in the shoes and leather design department.
During my life in Pakistan one of the issues that had become evident was how the culture as expressed in their art was not quite involved with ‘form’, hence space was mainly considered as a flat surface to be arranged with decorative and geometric elements. Stemming from this observation I proposed and carried out a special course for teachers of the institute on Shoe Last Design, which was carried out in the form of a practical as well as theoreticaI workshop. This was the first time the teaching staff had taken into consideration the fundamental role of shape in shoe design. Shoe lasts in the country were hard to find and not much importance had been given since to this crucial design.
The course was not just very successful but a revelation for most of the participants who were able to understand and attain unexpected results. Another key event was a course I taught personally a second year student class to prepare a mini thesis that would show case individual design prototypes.
This was a large success. The students got very involved and most of them produced outstanding results. I was welcomed in Pakistan as in all of my cooperation projects and felt that my contribution to the different parts of the project was very useful and appreciated both by the Institute and by the private companies.
I participated in the local ceremonies, visited museums and palaces, learned about the history and Pakistan’s separation from India and realized how the two countries have moved apart.
Having Pakistani visas on my passport has created issues later on when I was going to work in India so often. One day I was asked into a side room at passport ckeck at the airport and they questioned me for an hour asking all kinds of specific information before they allowed me on my flight to Delhi.
Milano / Bollate
2014-15 In order to be able to carry out official projects with my brand Braghetterosse I started the cultural association PARTART with two associates: Donatella Cianchetti (costume designer) and Elena Ciocca (art therapist) and together we designed and carried out PART•ART, SEGNI TRACCE TATUAGGIO an ethical design project in partnership with Art Therapy Italiana, with Social coop.Articolo 3 who acted as facilitators and a group of inmates of the detention house of Milano Bollate.
The idea was to convince companies to include the resulting products in their catalogues. We worked with stationary Smemoranda, Lunae Winery, Jannelli&Volpi wallpapers, Bastard Store, plus several other companies donated materials for the workshops. This was one of the most significant projects of Braghetterosse brand that has generated products of good aesthetic and practical value through a creative/formative path for the benefit of the inmates but also for of all those that have worked and participated.
We started the process with a a sequence of art therapy sessions lead by an art therapist, followed by a series of art sessions where the inmates drew tattoo subjects that led to the creation of patterns that were printed on fabric and fashioned into bags and caps, T-shits and much more by a Red Cross ngo sewing coop. A remarkable chain of participants, all within the no-profit field, providing products for private for profit companies. The entire project with all its steps was presented at an art gallery in Milano during the design week of 2015. See video on Braghetterosse.
Kolkata (Bengal, India)
At the end of 2015 I was hired by TORERO Group, an Indian company based in Kolkata as their global design director. I was with them for almost three years until July 2018 and enjoyed my mission in this wild, young company every bit of the way. I was very happy to have my main job in India. The young entrepreneur owner of the company had acquired a portfolio of licensed leather goods collections by western brands. Torero company designed them, produced them and also distributed them.
Among these POLICE, CROSS, COSMOPOLITAN and SWAROWSKI. I was traveling to Kolkata every two months for about three weeks and almost every day I was at the office with my design team through Skype. I worked with a bright group of young designers and also oversaw the sample making department as well as advising the company about strategies.
This was the most colorful commercial design position I have ever held and my appreciation of that country, its people and culture had a relevant effect in my sticking to the the job beyond my professional interest. The position had a range of different responsibilities from the actual design of each collection to advising the company on client management and commercial strategies, sourcing for external suppliers and manufactures, overseeing the graphics and communication department, catalogs, shootings, participations to events, store interior design. There was too much on the plate and the projects multiplied every month and sometimes every week. A very high turnover of design staff was also difficult to keep up with.
Because of this job I had the chance to meet SOIL Association (Social Organization for Integrated Living) with which I have been able to design and implement the best of the Braghetterosse/Partart projects. This is described in chapter 25. I eventually resigned from the post at Torero but I have maintained a positive relationship with management and many of the staff.
Hebron (Palestine)
June 2016. This was a three week design project as consultant for Modapelle Academy as part of a large project for Hebron Leather and Shoe cluster implemented by Ministry of National Economy in partnership with the Federation of Palestinian Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture and funded by the Agence Française De Développement (AFD).
During the shoe makers cluster design intervention I was at work with 6 different private companies with different characteristics and different products, designing for each of them a collection of models that would help them to be more attractive and competitive in the international market.
One of the companies involved in the project was Camel Sandals that I want to hightlight as a shining example of womens’ entrepreneurship. The founder, a young and very bright woman in a very harsh society that unfortunately holds women down more than I have seen in any other place. My experience in Palestine was unparalleled. My mission happended during Ramadan which made it hard to have regular working hours since everyone was up at night and sleeping late into the morning.
Never before I had experienced such a radical sacrifice of women who were essentially excluded from the professional world, were all married young with many children and were wearing floor length heavy coats and head scarves with very high June temperatures.
‘How can they stand that?’ I was asking. ‘They are used to it ‘ was the reply. It seemed strange because we were not far from Europe but I experienced the society there as completely male ruled. Young children working in home factories with unhealthy glues but apart from these rather unpleasant issues for me, everyone was lovely and I was able to witness and experience the degree of limitations, confinement and disrespect the local population suffered from Israel. Huge cultural experience for me for a three weeks project.
As far as the shoe making scenario, the home based small factories were not able to produce better quality products as they ought to have done because of lack of proper machinery and building blocks such as shoe lasts, also poor exposure to the international market. Palestinian shoes mostly don’t get past the Israeli market. However the project I worked within, was able to put most of the small companies in network and to create an attractive outlet shoe store in the city of hebron that surely will benefit the cluster.
Deula (Bengal, India)
During my job with Torero in Kolkata- itself the most colorful professional adventure of my long standing practice – in 2016 I was walking to the office throught the marketplace one day when I was approached by two smiling girls with a badge pinned to their t-shirts. They asked me if I would have been interested in a meditation practice the next day at a near-by temple. They were from an organization called ‘The Art of Living’.
I accepted the info from them, that evening I looked up the Art of Living on the web and decided it was ok for me to go to the meditation the next day and so I went and had a very lovely experience and met nice people. Following that, I participated to a three day intensive course where I learned some very effective breathing excercises ( pranayama) and met Mr. Sudipta Ray who is the founder and chairman of a local NGO : SOIL (Social Organization for Integrated Living).
Soil’s objective is to improve livelihood and sustainable agriculture in West Bengal. When Sudipta came to know about my ethical design projects with Braghetterosse and Partart he asked me if I could be interested in proposing a project to benefit the women of the farmer’s families of the village cluster working with SOIL. These were wives, daughters, sisters of the farmers who are usually not involved in working in the field but only in housework and childcare and in a state of poverty as the income of the farmers is very low and generally discontinuous due to the climate changes taking place in the region.
During the following year I have worked at this project with the crucial collaboration of my intern from Politecnico Chiara De Vescovi who researched and studied the possibilities of eco-printing techniques on jute. Jute is an eco-frienfly fiber which is vastly produced in west Bengal and Bangladesh. The outcome was to run a pilot workshop participated by a group of village women that would be guided by us to create plant and flower patterns on jute/cotton textiles that would be then fashioned into handbags and small accessories and distributed by Torero, the company that I was consulting for in Kolkata.
This workshop took about one year in preparation, to visit the villages, explain to the population what we were proposing, going back to have art sessions with the women that were interested, to verify their interest, to research and test the available jute/cotton textiles available on the market, to test the mordanting methods and the impact of the required chemicals. Finally a group of about 15 women was defined and the workshop was set up under a large tent set up by SOIL in one of the villlages.
Plants and flowers were picked, the correct mixture of jute/cotton textile provided, pre-washed and mordanted with the most eco-sensitive process and plants and flowers arranged on the jute to create decorative patterns. The fabric was rolled up and cooked in boiling water and then rinsed and set to dry. We experimented with different effects and learned which of the local plants were providing the best results. On the side we also produced dies from the same plants and used them to hand decorate on the textiles.
The participation of the women and the whole village was very enthusiastic, the cultural exchange was very fruitful from both sides and the resulting work was quite successful. Sample bags were made by Torero company to exemplify the whole process. At that point the stakeholders desire was to continue the activity and to structure it so that it could actually bring about even a small social change.
It’s important to note that the opportunity the women had to express themselves creatively was crucial to the energy the workshop was infused with. Being in a condition that allows acting creatively is a key tool towards empowerment.
We are still researching the opportunity to continue this project on a new location now purchased by SOIL in Santiniketan, a characteristic town north of Kolkata, well known tourist destination and headquarter to many of the creative arts and crafts as well as site of an important University.
Daka (Bangladesh)
Apex Footwear Ltd. – May 2018
Travelled to Daka shoe manufacturer with my design team head from Torero Company to design and develop a sneaker collection for Police brand on the spot. Very large factory and probably the most ‘extreme’ experience in my accessory design career.
Every morning thousands of local workers entered the factory grounds patrolled by private police armed with automatic shotguns, to join the shift on the assemply lines. Three work shifts in the 24 hours. Other employees from middle management-with home and family in Daka- could not go home at night because the road is so primitive and dangerous and traffic is so impossible that it takes over 3 hours to travel the 50 km distance from the main city. Hence they live inside the factory and go home only one weekend every two weeks. In the evening I joined the communal dinner table with them served very kindly by a young cook who especially made spaghetti for me after having been advised I was Italian.
Producing an attractive sneaker collection was impossible as the basis we had available to develop the collection were not suitable, but we did the most we possibly could and the collection was made. It was professionally frustrating but again a most enlightening cultural experience. I was afraid of traveling to that area which is raided by criminal police and military shooting local gangs of dangerous drug dealers. Torero company insisted a lot because of the short deadline to present the sneaker collection they had defined with Police brand against my advice. This episode convinced me at last I could no longer remain with Torero.
My advisory was being too often disregarded hence I could not deliver results and though I was attached to the people in the company, including its owner, in July, after a trip to London to visit retail partners, I resigned with much sorrow on both sides. Since then I have been in touch with several people from the company and provided the boss and the new designer with some design consultancy.
Milano
Included with my large threedimensional works from 2010 in the art show STAND FOR GIRLS curated by Elisabetta Longari at Fabbrica del Vapore from 23/02 to March 13th.
Showing my works from 20 years before in a show dedicated to art against violence towards women and issues with adolescence. That was really unexpected and very refreshing to aknowledge that something unlikely can still happen. And in this case both unlikely and pleasant.
Parallel to this unforseen event in art, I start designing and developing the handbag and shoes collections for a new luxury fashion brand owned by a Chinese company LM AGNESE and designed in Italy by Andrea Piccione. The stile is cool and contemporary, All the accessories, shoes and bags are special. They must suit the clothes. We start with many sketches and end up with a selection of no more that a dozen samples for each collection. I develop the samples with factories in Marche.
This is an ongoing consultancy that keeps me connected to the world of luxury that still exists…and expands. I like Andrea and find him very talented.
Kigali, Rwanda
Two missions to Rwanda between May and August 2019, as a consultant for Modapelle Accademy hired by APEFE (Association pour la Promotion de l’Education et de la Formation à l’Etranger) in partnership with Belgian Gov.t. and Rwanda Gov.t. The first trip TO PERFOM THE NEEDS ASSESSMENT IN ORDER TO INCREASE THE COMPETITIVENESS OF COMPANIES IN THE LEATHER INDUSTRY IN RWANDA. The second mission was a Consultancy on development of Curricula for Leather Goods and Shoemaking for RTQF Level 3-5.
During the first mission we toured much of the small country and visited several micro enterprises and shops as well as professional training institutions that had been previously established by different international donors such as UNIDO. Much of the grand infrastructures that were built in recent years were not in use or mostly underused. Showing the shortcomings that many cooperation projects share when they underestimate the need to form and train people first and when they underestimate the scarcity of materials and supplies on the territories where they build the infrastructures that remain empty and unused.
We have encountered two examples of excellence in entrepreneurship both led by women. One remarkable shoe brand UZURI created from scratch by two very bright young women with strong ethical, business and design sense. But I am going to let them speak for themseles through this video.
Their system entirely revolves around training people to the job! That’s intelligence! The handbag brand Dokmai, created and run by Bernadette Umunyana who is smart enough to employ and advertise a leather imitation fiber made from pineapple husk PINATEX, given the scarce availability of leathers in Rwanda. Both these companies which are -by the way- the only noticeable businesses in this field are certified Fair Trade, organized and run in an enviable way.
The second mission was fully dedicated to assist a commission of about twenty people whose task was that of filling in the complex format of a training curriculum for shoemaking and leather goods making that would be used by the national institutions.
These missions in Rwanda were a rich experience for me. With its terrible history, I had no idea I would find such a pleasant, tidy and calm country, plastic free! Outside of the city quiet agricultural life, pineapple groves, tea farms higher up onto the green hills. We visited small workshops and domestic leather tanning around lake Kivu. There at the Congo border you could catch a glimpse of the huge and humming city of Goma and its colorful, amazingly exotic population with carts and bundles spurting out of the border’s turnstyles.
As in other foreign countries, here also I found in all the people involved a really strong desire to connect, learn, catch all possible opportunities.
The field trips led to a report which included planning for a three yrs training program in leather/accessory design and development which- due to Covid setting in-has not yet been confirmed.
Gimillan (Cogne, Valdaosta, Italy)
In October of 2020, when the country was suffering extended lock-downs because of the spread of Covid, I moved from Milano to Gimillan, a small mountain village on the western Alps at 1800 mts facing the Gran Paradiso National Park. This is a celebrated alpine touristic destination and a familiar place for me where I have spent holidays in summer and winter for many years.
While continuing my consultancy with LM AGNESE for the design and product development of their shoes and handbags, and teaching my courses at Politecnico and Naba online, I can walk out the back of my chalet and climb into the woods where I can see fox, chamois, deer and higher up to the top of the mountains where I look at things from a different point of view, only eagle and falcon above me. I feel very lucky to be here during this time but also wondering what will happen next. Hopefully we’ll be back teaching in class soon, but regarding the rest of the world, coming and going to different countries so freely, as I was used to, that seems not so easy to do any more.
I go back to the city once a month. I am formulating a summer school project in connection with trecking and trecking accessory design. At the same time I am exploring the possibility to go forward with the women’s empowerment project for SOIL that we piloted in 2017 in Deula village near Kolkata. Hopefully putting together a few parners to set it up as a social business. I have a fast internet connection so I don’t feel disconnected but I miss traveling and meeting people.
For any additional inqueries feel free to write me at giovanna.villani@icloud.com