The Light
Stars, sidereal spaces, celestial nebula, planets and asteroids. Gattinoni’s Haute Couture collection for the 2009-2010 Fall/Winter season, signed by its creative director, Guillermo Mariotto, undertakes a journey towards the light. Blinding, dazzling light, that clamps one in a vice or an embrace. The light of the stars that, once upon a time, guided sailors, light described and exalted in the works by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, but, above all, an inner light, the conscience sublimated in the motion of the mind and the spirit. “In my journey of light within the bounds of fashion – explains Guillermo Mariotto – I invested heavily in the research on colour.

Pastel, veiled, discreet, retro shades. Colour had to lose its explosive force to be transformed in an astral glow”. Powder, pink, coral, avion, dove grey, mother-of-pearl, shaded, iridescent greys, ochre and only a few whites, solely for the wedding gowns. See-through, ethereal, deconstructed outfits, astral luminosity, matter-like decorations and couture volumes. The Gattinoni haute couture collection for the forthcoming Fall/Winter season is transformed into conceptual art, into the obsessive search for a model to compose and decompose. “For this collection, I experimented with an unexpected matter-like element, horsehair – explains Mariotto – Light, ultra-light, more consistent, more compact, more rigid. The leitmotif of the new collection. Originally a game – confesses Gattinoni’s creative director – I used horsehair to create sculpture-like shapes, real mouldings. Each garment was modelled and moulded on the dummy. For the first time the sketch was a mere pretext, an idea, a dream that, as the work progressed, we often distorted, revolutionized. In the end, I believe that horsehair is the lightest fabric. In fact, from the very beginning I was convinced that it would be the highlight of my collection”. Hence, every garment is a citation. Horsehair covered with tulle, duchesse silk, embellished by embroidery, it is transformed and decomposed. It accompanies the dress as something unavoidably superfluous. Horsehair sculpts jackets, capes, collars and sleeves. Mariotto engraves, scratches and chisels to transform it. Horsehair creates luminescent effects, also the result of the layering of fabrics, asymmetrical cuts, the aim being to discover new volumes and unusual proportions that reinvent sartorial canons.

“The idea of flight has never left me – Mariotto once again confesses – Orbits, planetary motion, that marvellous sense of a lack of the force of gravity…everything had to combine, on an emotional level, to recreate a state of mind and soul ”.

Even the colour palette of the embroidery was inspired by the shades of the Gattinoni planisphere, of course. Rhinestones, semi-precious stones, pearls, opaline, aquamarine, crystals, slivers of metallized leather or neoprene, macramè a pois to compose lunar universes, planets seen through a microscope, like unique hand-painted jacquard canvases.

A spatial tapestry shaded in tones of gold. Guillermo Mariotto makes reference to the anniversary of the landing of the first man on the moon, 40 years after the historic event and those authors who accompanied him on his creative journey. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Edmond de Rostand and Cyrano de Bergerac, they too, also marvellously obsessed by the idea of flight, Michael Jackson and his moonwalk. Thirty Six garments will be presented on the Sala Lancisi catwalk in Santo Spirito in Sassia . The models will emerge from cones of light radiated from an enormous star, covered by 800 Osram light bulbs, rigorously environmentally-friendly for energy-saving, placed at the foot of the catwalk. Suits featuring short jackets made from see-through horsehair, bare, shawl collars, aerodynamic sheath dresses in gold lame or metallic gauze presented side-by-side with a pale pink dress with organza flounces and ruffles (thousands, minimal), clouds of tulle and horsehair as intangible nebulae, to create real fluid architectural shapes. However, the idea of stiffness is only apparent, for a style that Mariotto likes to define as cosmo-baroque. A gravitational collection, because everything orbits and revolves in a circular direction around the body. Like the bouilloné di macramè shirt, it gives the idea of a woman dressed only with precious, see-through yarns, like an ancient goddess, or the one featuring helicoidal sleeves in horsehair, interwoven with lamé embroidery and accompanied by a mermaid-style skirt. Ellipses held in place by a womanly physicality. As is the case each season, for the forthcoming collection, Mariotto, experiments, gets a taste of, sounds and tests the fabrics in order to then transform them into garments and works of art. Fabrics in silicone-coated jersey for the bridal gown enfolded by a huge cape, new pleats laminated using avant-garde techniques, worked metallic gauze, corsets created with sequined oleographed tulle. A strange, mysterious sensation. A hemi-cycle of light, consisting not only of pleats and tucks. As already emphasized in the dress, for the forthcoming Fall/Winter season, the Gattinoni woman will wear neither hats nor frills. However, she will not give up her jewellery, worn even in her hair, broches en tête, designed for the maison’s collection by the young goldsmith-designer, Gianni De Benedittis. The only fetish, glam touch will be the shoe. Wedged sandals decoded in metallic colours, with décor that resumes the circular motion of the planets. Gattinon’s woman will be ethereal. She will have lunar-like skin and will wear luminescent make-up. A reference to Twilight, to the universe of vampires, to challenges and impossible love, of only the highest order, not only physically but, above all, spiritually. An urgency, a necessity for men. Ascension as a challenge, sublimated and possible paths that garments transform, that the maison’s creative director transforms into a universal prayer. With a tribute, a dedication to the Leaders of the World, to the G8 summit. The dress in lame organza with steel threads and crystals. The outline of a heavily embroidered eagle, poised to take flight. An emblem of the rebirth of the earth and, above all, of a world in search of its own deeply suffered and painful identity.

Madame de Vinteul