ANTONIO MARRAS SPRING SUMMER 2015 WOMEN’S COLLECTION – MILANO FASHION WEEK

CAROLINA MY CAROLINA

A passionate dedication to Carol Rama

The first time I met Carolina I was terrified … I admit that it does not happen very often, I would say that it happens rarely to be so terrified that I could not think of anything else.

Yes, it was decided: First, we’d go to the gallery to see her artworks, afterwords in the afternoon we’ d go home to Carol’s, just by food as she’s living just round the corner in front of Mollino’s house.

Carol welcomed us in the hallway, crowned by her braid and took us to the bedroom. She was sitting in her armchair and told us where to go: “You here, she there and you, Antonio, come here on the floor just beside me.”

Carol attracts you and she catches you. She was telling us about Man Ray, Warhol, Orson Wells, Carlo Mollino, the frogs, …and the asylum and the french kisses…

She started playing with my rags and at that point I was hoping that time would never pass by. We talked again on the phone, we screamed that we were already missing each other.

She is beautiful, inappropriate, provocative, disturbing and generous. A character from all over the top whose art is incomprehensible, obscene and crazy, just like her. I’ve always loved, she says, things and situations that were used to be rejected with.

There is so much to fall in love with, deeply in love – and I did… From that point on, our first meeting, our never-ending story started. A story of handcraft and silks, embroideries and prints, flowers and colors. The warm colors of the sunset in the mornings and dreams of the night.

Shame and transgression, hands and roses, frogs and hands, hands and … “a rose is a rose is a rose” …from dream to nightmare to extravagance, the extravagance of the avant-garde, powerful and front, poetic, languid and crazy and impredictabel as a magma, as an encounter of love, as a memory … dresses and sweaters and shirts as hugs, sometimes reassuring, sometimes too sensual … silks and pleats and prints and secrets … an extension that hides and exalts for an intimate private vision, for a meeting with yourself … for those who have to deal with the follies and deceptions.

Bold colors such as the turquoise of a sky without disorder but filled with flowers and sensual imaginations of antique roses, an orange, warm, hot, bright, direct, so shameless.

Transparent organza, voile and tulle like secrets we do not want to hide, appearing polka dots and bicycle tyres which turn soft, just like surrealist dreams combined with texture sometimes taken from Carol’s pieces of art, some other time freely inspired by her. And hands that hug or tighten or warm or stop …

The jewelry/sculpture born from the meeting of Monica Castiglioni (artist, photographer and designer) and Antonio Marras. Each piece is unique and each element appears to be the fragment of a dictionary which is made up revealing a language.

Objects, rings and necklaces and bracelets, such as prosthesis, present and powerful, visible in their being timeless, enhanced by the luster of bronze.

Pieces conceived for a project which is based on some fundamental connections of the body, Connection between organ and organ, between inside and outside, between full and empty, between visible and invisible, between shyness and arrogance.

Forms that arise from a reference and a definite icon: Carol Rama

Francesca Alfano Miglietti