Gattinoni Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2009

Gattinoni Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2009

La clarté était telle qu’elle l’éblouissait. Il dut fermer les yeux. Il n’aurait jamais cru que les nuages, la nuit, pussent éblouir. Mais la pleine lune et toutes les constellations les changeaient en vagues rayonnantes

“Vol de nuit”- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Flight

Flight as a challenge, the final aspiration, a dream, grandeur. Sublimated energy that transcends weight and gravity, that aspires to universes of lightness. Because High Fashion must finally be able to fly. For the 2009 Spring/Summer collection, Guillermo Mariotto, creative director of maison Gattinoni, has worked on the theme of a spiritual voyage, a highly personal engagement, namely the search for happiness. In man’s collective imaginary, flight has always represented a sort of marvellous utopia, a mirage, an illusion – explains Guillermo Mariotto - Take, for exaple, the myth of Icarus. Today, this illusion has been transformed into something different. It is the hope for a better world, the kind of freedom that does not bind or chain men down, that allows them to fly, relieving them of an oppressive weight. Freeing positive and creative energy. For the forthcoming S/S season, Guillermo Mariotto has worked on fabrics, he has experimented with shapes. Tireless, passionate research. Light, ultra-light fabrics, ever-changing, iridescent and floating. Silks, gauze, chiffon and organza sculpted like works of art. Sharp, asymmetrical cuts, small frills that encase garments as if they were precious jewels, pleats and flounces. Short, bon ton dresses, embroidered couture sheath dresses, swathed with stoles that open on the arms (shoulders are almost always bare) like the wings of beautiful butterflies. In the middle a star, the emblem of the collection, ultra-luminous rays, a symbol of the resurrection of the body and the soul. White with sidereal luminescent shades, oil green, amber, orange, caramel, metallic silver, flesh pink and all the various shades of blue from indigo to petroleum, right up to gun metal grey are the colours of the forthcoming season.
The garments created by Guillermo Mariotto for maison Gattinoni are visionary, de-structured and cut as if suspended in the air. His yellow dress, worked with fabric strips resting on organza, is a perfect example. He creates unexpected optical effects, he gives the illusion of a degradation of lines and concentric circles, very similar to the acrobatic manoeuvres of aeroplanes in flight.
Maison Gattinoni’s creative director confesses that, for this collection, he was inspired by his own life. A sort of presentation of his autobiography?
More my way of conceiving existence – he explains. The idea of flight is linked to a dream, a breath of hope that could represent a source of change for everyone. But, in order to fly, we must wear light garments. Haute Couture teaches one to free oneself of the superfluous, of matter in order to pursue an ideal world and truth. Even through the use of an explicit, transparent symbology. Wraps embroidered with crystals that unfold like wings (butterflies, beetles, aeroplanes), heavily embroidered denim reminiscent of lunar settings, the dress made from fluorescent metallic steel gauze, worn by modern-day Barbarelle, intergalactic.
Outfits featuring streamlined, aerodynamic shapes with mega jewel-style bibs, but also culottes (a big comeback) in mikado and organza shirts in a shade similar to lilac (however, please note, neither violet nor mauve) that caress the face with a sort of scarf-head covering-type effect. Princess Grazia Borghese created exclusive jewels for the occasion. A hymn to nature, to lightness and to flight. Feathers-collier in white gold, diamonds and emeralds, butterflies and brooches set with turquoises, molten rock, topaz and rock crystals. The Gattinoni woman is elegant, classy and bold, but not overly so. She favours plunging necklines such as those found in the caftans painted with handmade painted leaves. Like Mariotto’s dress created for Pitture Volanti, exhibition of the artist Franco Guerzoni presented at Palazzo Bevilacqua (Bologna) on 23^rd Friday January 2009. The artwork finds a new life, a life “other”, which cames and walk together to the person who wears it, on caftan with planets, shaded in tones of blue and green and cinched by belts that slide, in an ultra-sensual way, over the body and are worked with stones, crystals, ceramics, engraved metallic leather, enamels and micro hematite chips. In Guillermo Mariotto’s imagination they represent the smoky mist created by aeroplanes, the exuberant force of flight. Conversely, decorated filigree and cameos are reminiscent of the control systems of space shuttles. Brightly-coloured levers, buttons and controls. Optical, luminescent effects. Just like the last outfits showcased on the Santo Spirito catwalk. The long journey is coming to an end. We have flown from one hemisphere to another. The moon meets the sun. Night softens into day. The dawn is coming up. Here in Gattinoni’s new 2009 Spring/Summer collection, a tribute to Barak Obama, the newly-elected President of the United States, was an absolute incumbent. His face sculpted on a dress created with Ingeo fiber, Ingeo^TM, a natural fibre obtained from a renewable source, the highest form of sustainable technological innovation in the world. The words spoken by him during his inaugural address come to mind. Ideals, vision, a breath of hope, the courage to face new challenges. A manifesto-type caftan – confesses Mariotto – When I think about real change, a silent, pacific revolution, I think about him, of Barak Obama. The idea of flight is once again resumed, a man soaring in pursuit of his dreams.
Gran soirée-style outfits, cut like fuselage, are worn with trapezoidal stoles-arms are bare. Gattinoni’s 2009 Spring/Summer collection features also jackets: shortened, lighter and softer, spencers finished with gauze baguette, ultra-elegant, low-necked collars, of the shawl type. In the past, women used jackets to conquer a position, a kind of rigid armour, both self-referential and highly authoritative. Guillermo Mariotto has reinvented them by giving them a new appeal. On the contrary, his wedding gowns are classical, ultra-classical. Although veils have been abolished, the gowns retain their trains with effects that are regal, nonchalant and uninhibited but, above all, light and ethereal. Only a minimum of accessories for the Gattinoni woman. Farewell to sophisticated headgear (too serious!) and excessive wedges: here elegant sandals decorated with crinolines.
Gattinoni‘s models flaunt cyberspace type hairstyles. Teased, tonged, aerodynamic hair like fuselage in flight. Their eyes, like the small wings of imaginary aircraft, are painted with micro mirrors that reflect the light of the catwalk. The same applies to bags, only pochettes, to be worn with nonchalance under the arm, studded with semi-precious stones. Minimalist stage settings for what was once an old air-raid shelter. Two Spartan, rounded curtains like the wings of an archangel, like sidereal planets. In the middle, a blinding spotlight, under which every garment is accentuated and then disappears.

Madame de Vinteul