HORIZONS

DURAZZI MILANO has chosen to present the Autumn Winter 2023 Collection in the rooms of the Casa Corbelli­ ni-Wassermann that was designed by the celebrated architect Piero Portaluppi.
The collection, which in these rooms reaffirms the inspiration of the brand drawn from the canons of Italian modernist architecture, is told through an experience that is full of suggestions and which uses the language of the theatre, contem­ porary art and performance art.

Dressed in ivory-coloured felt – a primary element in the collection – the main room of the gallery has been transformed into a padded stage which houses a mise-en-scene : silhouettes are projected onto this neutral background and, with a mix of feminine grace and animal impetuosity,recall gestures,natural landscapes and galloping horses. They alternate with images of the faces of ten women who, as guiding spirits, are projected onto the face of the models who wear the new creations. They are women who have been chosen because they are icons: scientists, artists, intellectuals. Pioneers who through their example have opened up paths and inspired many others.

The presentation is a tribute to the opera Some Living American Women Artists by Mary Beth Edelson (Chicago 1933-2021), in which the artist reworks Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, by replacing the faces of the disciplines with female artists of her time,provocatively upturning the scene and thus creating a historic and tangible catalogue of genera­ tions of artists and feminists.
As in Edelson’s work, the mise-en-scene of the collection becomes a ritual of empowerment. DURAZZI MILANO has chosen to portray society through the female gaze, and a woman ‘s view on reality, in the firm belief that it is important to make today’s women a mirror for those of tomorrow, and to celebrate their role in society, the story of all women and, above all, their future.

In the creations of the Autumn Winter 2023 Collection, there are metamorphoses and hybridisations that tell the story of ancient passions and the desire for an alternative to the clamour of modern life, we find that symbiotic relationship with the horse that drives the creation of clothes and accessories, borrowing textiles and shapes from the equestrian world, such as the brand logo, inspired by bridles.
The saddle dress, the riding boots and the bags shaped like saddle bags mix tradition and top-level craftsmanship in the choice of materials such as paint, felt ,embroidery,the product of the best Italian design tradition. The clothes keep their well-tried shapes, the same silhouettes with decisive lines that rework tailoring and the concept of uniforms, eschew­ ing gender or definition ;but if modularity, repetition and minimalist rigour are identifying traits of the brand, then so too is the unexpected, the direction that strays from the path: and this is why exquisite craftsmanship is interspersed with graphic elements, the wild and surrealist fur element, television adverts in colour and motifs that are hand painted on blankets for horses. They also feature on the clothes, creating an interrupted story between humans and animal pride.

In another large room in the gallery, five steel structures in the shape of a horse display the blankets from the collection, the starting point to be able to follow the trajectories that have flowed together in the motifs and patterns of the creations. As always the blankets are the narrational tools, voices that tell stories, as in the Navajo culture , in medievaltapestries or in Homer’s poetry: the images painted on the ones of the collection show women on horseback in an unpolluted landscape,in which the red of the desert at sunset follows on from the cold tones of the heathland of the north, and where the horizon seems infinite, as if it were a great work of Land Art.A sign, the distinctive trait of a community that feeds on details of architecture, art and unpolluted landscape, and which talks a universal language that embraces diverse visions” and sensitivity.

In the interior garden at Casa Corbellini-Wassermann, two untied horses watch the public in the gallery, while their images are projected in an adjacent room. They are the perfect reflection of the Autumn Winter 2023 Collection which describes a hybrid horsewoman who can open a breach and leave her mark.