A life dedicated to fashion, Luciana Boccardi is a great Venetian. Her Burlesque – Dizionario Surreale is the testament to an endless career as a journalist and writer, and to her great love for Venice
For the grand finale of fashion week in Venice, Venice Fashion Week wanted to pay tribute to Luciana Boccardi in person. A digitally open closed-door meeting, broadcast live on Veneziadavivere.com’s social channels, to celebrate a great Venetian icon of fashion journalism, and present her latest book: Burlesque – Dizionario Surreale.
The interview with the journalist who reminded the world of the Venice-
The director of Venezia da Vivere and co-creator of the Venice Fashion Week event greeted and welcomed the online audience by reading the message that the lady of haute couture Raffaella Curiel, a friend of Luciana Boccardi, wanted to send for the occasion: “Luciana is a woman of profound culture, both from a literary and musical perspective. I have known her for 40 years now, she has brought Venice to the world and she is also a very generous person, something extremely rare in our field.”
In addition to the presentation of the book, published by La Musa Talia, the event was an opportunity to pay tribute to a formidable woman with a life full of great emotions, always going against the current, bold and faithful to her motto “never afraid of anything.”
The interview saw journalists and friends take turns at the microphone, culminating in the celebration “for bringing the name of Venice and its creativity to the world” by Venice Fashion Week and Sistema Moda Veneto with president Roberto Bottoli. A precious hand-woven shawl made with antique looms from Tessitura La Colombina, a historic artisan company, was the gift presented by the company’s president, Mario Colombo.
Large, intense and fiery green eyes, irony and passion, a career from the Venice Biennale to directing cultural and political magazines, from fashion journalism to books and events, through battles and civic engagement, Boccardi has known and witnessed the rise of great designers such as Valentino and Armani and has witnessed the evolution of Italian fashion from prêt-à-porter to digital fashion.
Still a contributor to Il Gazzettino today with her column Modi & Moda, where she discusses fashion and culture with her personal and unmistakable sensitive and candid point of view, Luciana has told the stories of the people behind the labels, making the ephemeral world of fashion human and accessible.
Burlesque – Dizionario Surreale, written during the spring lockdown, is an editorial “game” of testimonies, curiosities, and memories of important figures encountered – both in reality and through emotions – throughout her endless career as a journalist and writer.
Declarations of dreams and desires – Hitler wanted to be a painter, says Boccardi – emotional encounters with great artists – Mariano Fortuny: I am the Dostoevsky of fashion – with great journalists – Anna Piaggi: her “burlesque” costumes didn’t impress me, accustomed as I was to Carnival – with the interpreters of international fashion – Hermès: who said that frivolous purchases would stop with Coronavirus?.
“Fashion is nothing but the mirror of our life, and what does it reflect today? Uncertainty, fear, desire for normality, which seems to have disappeared”. There are Chiara Ferragni and the Baby Doll, Audrey Hepburn and Harry’s Bar, the miniskirt and important fashion journalists, Dior, Coco Chanel, Alessandro Michele, Elsa Schiaparelli and Carlo Scarpa, everything that Luciana Boccardi has encountered, heard, and known in her life. And in the afterword Luciana launches a “utopian” appeal for her city.
An original and “surreal” dictionary, as the author herself defines it with an ironic vein that piques our curiosity, particularly regarding the reading of some great historical figures she recounts: “I made them say something they may never have said.”
Watch the entire event on Saturday, December 26, 2020 at 9:00 PM, during the Christmas Edition of Venice Fashion Week Digital and then on YouTube.
Luciana Boccardi
Burlesque – Dizionario Surreale
Edizioni La Musa Talia, Venice
Purchase the book on Ibs.it
Photos by Marta Formentello. With thanks to Hotel Aman Venice.
