Venice Fashion Week: Rediscovering the Value of Venice

A Venice Fashion Week featuring high craftsmanship, sustainable fashion, and young designers to rediscover the value of Venice, bring craftsmanship into the future, highlight the city’s productive side, and develop international collaborations.

The ninth edition of Venice Fashion Week concluded with an event for three hundred people at the Hotel Bauer, where seven Venetian designers and one Iranian designer presented collections blending contemporary fashion, sartorial tradition, and sustainability.

The tenth edition of the slow fashion week will take place from May 5 to 10, 2020. Following an event that saw eight international participations and over seventy events spread across hotels, art galleries, boutiques, a carpentry workshop, and the headquarters of the Venetian plasterers, Venice Fashion Week announces the dates for the upcoming 2020 editions, May 5-10 and October 15-24, 2020, and presents the themes that emerged:

Narrating a New Aspect of Venice

“Venice is a very important city for commercial and cultural exchanges between Italy and Great Britain,” began the British Ambassador to Italy, Jill Morris, speaking at the Sustainable Fashion Day organized at Ca’ Sagredo. The President of the City Council, Ermelinda Damiano, expressed her gratitude for entrusting Venice with the role of global ambassador for sustainable fashion, thereby also promoting its creative, artisanal, and productive heritage.

Venice: City of Craftsmanship, UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage

“Venice is the place where fashion is culture and the common thread of centuries-old traditions, as well as a driving force for the future,” continued the President of the City Council at Ca’ Sagredo, where the organizers of Venice Fashion Week launched the idea of nominating Venice as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage City of Craftsmanship.

Venice Has Excelled in Craftsmanship for Over a Thousand Years

During Venice Fashion Week, the Alto Artigianato Venezia Association was established from the desire to showcase and promote the excellence of Venetian high craftsmanship, bringing together the city’s historic companies. In the garden of the Orsoni Furnace, in the presence of the founders Orsoni Venezia 1888, Tessitura Bevilacqua, Lunardelli Venezia, and Atelier Martina Vidal, and featuring a musical performance by Enrico Coniglio, the first collaboration was presented with designers Tiziano Guardini and Patrick McDowell using fabrics from Tessitura Bevilacqua and Fornace Orsoni.

Relaunching Veneto Fashion

Ambitious projects for the Veneto Fashion Table, which brings together fashion entrepreneurs, industries, institutions, and schools: the project by Confartigianato, CNA, and Confindustria del Veneto to produce a Tiziano Guardini capsule collection in Veneto using Bevilacqua fabrics—created with eighteenth-century looms in the last textile factory still operating in Venice—also includes mentorship by Guardini for students of manufacturing vocational schools, who will have the opportunity to discover firsthand how a sustainable fashion collection is born.

Fashion and High Craftsmanship as City Culture

“Venice is a vital center of production.” Andrea Erri, General Manager of the Teatro La Fenice, introduced the event created by art director Carlos Tieppo at the Sale Apollinee with these words: a fashion show presenting the Theater’s costumes created by the Sartoria. The protagonists were the seamstresses and the secrets behind the costumes of the most beloved operas.

A Productive Future for Venice

The event presented the projects of over forty Venetian and regional designers through fashion shows, cocktails, and performances, also initiating international collaborations and inaugurating the Sotoportego de Rialto—a new shopping street of workshops, laboratories, and ateliers as an alternative to the major brand streets, located in the oldest heart of Venice: jewelry, fashion, design, and craftsmanship, garments made from seaweed fabrics, Murano glass design, and goldsmith workshops in the ancient street of goldsmiths.

Fashion is a Powerful Vehicle for Conveying Important Messages

What my jeans say about the garment industry. Matteo Ward of Fashion Revolution, co-founder and CEO of the sustainable Vicenza-based brand WRÅD, spoke at IED Venice with professor and designer Raffaella Brunzin, students, and the public about sustainability and traceability.
Accompanied by fashion icon Diane Pernet, the NOPLASTIC performance by Alexandra Mas reached thousands of tourists in St. Mark’s Square, inviting them to adopt sustainable behaviors and a conscious approach to the city.

Fashion also means a commitment to sustainable tourism, such as the Novecento project, a boutique hotel by the Romanelli Family, and social inclusion: Talking Hands is an independent tailoring workshop directed by Anthony Knight and Anna Clara Zambon, born from an idea by Fabrizio Urettini. Reversible oversize outerwear made by migrants from Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Mali, featuring beautiful wax prints and high-quality raw materials from Lanificio Paoletti, established in Follina since 1795.

The number of designers attentive to the theme of sustainability continues to grow: Alberta Ferretti created the Love Me capsule collection with Eco Age by Livia Firth, featuring organic cotton and recycled cashmere, presented at an event in the Venetian boutique Spazio A.

Design, exhibitions, and eco-friendly projects for the Padua-based O bag, the iconic customizable bag that created Chiudi il cerchio (Close the Circle), a project to collect bag shells and transform them into puzzle-mats for children in Mozambique.

Green projects for the artisanal perfume brand Acqua dell’Elba, which has always been committed to protecting the sea, presenting its latest fragrances with the Sea Essence International Festival held at the end of June on the Isle of Elba with international partners. A perfect match with Magoga Bags, Venetian bags made from recycled sails, a sustainable project by Sabrina Pigozzo.

The Vicenza-based GAS jeans started from sustainability with the ETX- Keep it green project to create the new generation total denim look, a perfect balance of industrial heritage, ethics, and aesthetics.

The Value of Creation

Venice Fashion Week 2019 was the event where craftsmanship was celebrated more than ever: seamstresses, lace-makers, mosaicists, carpenters—industrious hands that create wonders and deserve to be recognized for the value they produce.

Venice Fashion Week began with a seamstress: the tableau vivant performance by South African couturier Romi Loch Davis, L’ultimo spessore. L’orma rigeneratrice dell’amore, kicked off the events at Palazzo Polignac, alongside presentations by the Parisian brand Chatelles and Venetian designer Carla Plessi at Edmond à Venise.

“We want to represent the creative ferment of Iran and tell the story of how we are influenced by what is happening in our country. We are creatives living all over the world and we represent Made in Tehran.” A focus on creative Iran with the fashion show at Caffè Lavena featuring the young and original creations of the brand A2bymatin by designers Aida and Anahita Matin, a workshop that combines Iranian culture with Italian tailoring expertise.

The fashion shows: Venetian designer Antonia Sautter created a runway show to enhance artisanal tailoring and celebrate the creative energy of women: QueensEssential evokes the queens of literature, opera, and history with a phantasmagoric spectacle.

The new Hotel Heureka in Cannaregio presented the fashion show of Viennese designer Michel Mayer in its eclectic spaces, featuring sartorial, precious, and spectacular evening gowns.

Painted Fashion: young sustainable designer Alessandra Micolucci began her fashion week by painting two organic linen dresses that were worn for a contemporary dance performance by dancers from the FIFTH Dance School by Silvia Funes at the event that closed Venice Fashion Week in the monumental spaces of the Unione Stuccatori Veneziani, which is hosting the Venice Photo Lab photography festival curated by Fabio Cavessago of Lab77 until November 3.

Fashion and Venetian Murrine: for the event at the Hotel Bonvecchiati, the goldsmiths of Atelier Laberintho introduced master glassmaker Stefano Morasso, who conceived a unique technique for using blown glass scraps and murrine as if they were semi-precious stones for contemporary jewelry, while sisters Giovanna, Carlotta, and Orsola Moretti created the brand Vita di Vetro, which transfers the colors of Venetian murrine onto ethereal silk scarves. As part of Venice Fashion Week, they presented an exhibition at the O bag store and four dresses created together with sustainable designers Alessandra Micolucci and Gabriella Marin at events at Hotel Palazzo Paruta and Hotel Bauer.

Further fashion partnerships included designer Daniela Giacometti, who presented her latest collection in innovative materials and custom-made dresses at the Hotel Bauer—during an evening where designer Carla Plessi also wore a precious dress created by Daniela specifically for her—and Lunardelli Venezia, which presented the creations of young Venetian designer Gianluca Regazzo made with mosaic tiles from the historic Fornace Orsoni 1888.

The fashion cocktail Domenica a Palazzo marked the city debut for the new 5-star Hotel Ca’ Bonfadini, which showcased artisanal excellence such as the cyberpunk creations of Amina Mi, contemporary cashmere by CentoXcento made in Italy, jewelry by Ladra di Perle, boiled wool garments by Madì, hyper-colored shoes by Vladì, bags in Bevilacqua fabrics by Bvl Venezia, sculptures selected by The_Sign, and ethical fashion by Banco Lotto n. 10. Guest from Istanbul was designer Derya Olmez, who renews the ancient tradition of Ebru—the art of drawing on water and transferring the creations to silk—with bold and innovative colors inspired by Venice.

There was no shortage of cocktails in the boutiques: at the surprising German brand Unützer Venice, in the creative salon of Giorgia Lo Spazio 2091 in the company of food blogger Zen Kitchen, and at the Gazèl boutique in the Rialto Fish Market with designer Alessandra Verona to present Gazèl Airlines, a pop-rock inspired capsule collection created in collaboration with painter Giacomo Piussi.

The evenings in the hotels served as salons where the protagonists shared their stories with the public, discussing inspirations, techniques, and goals for a cross-cutting creativity that always arrives in, and departs from, Venice:

Hotel Palazzo Paruta and Hotel Bauer hosted silk dresses featuring the colors of ancient murrine by the Moretti Sisters, sustainable fashion by Gabriella Marin, glamorous fashion by Arnoldo and Battois, jewelry by Marisa Convento—a creative Venetian who keeps alive the ancient craft of the ‘impiraressa’ (bead stringer)—Venetian ‘Coffe’ bags in colored feathers by Norma Marzà of Teod’Amar, unique vintage lace pieces by Remué Venice, bags in materials from around the world with studs and precious fabrics by Carla Plessi, and fashion blending design and architecture by Apart by Daniela Giacometti.

The Upcoming 2020 Editions

Thanks to the international collaborations initiated in 2019, Venice Fashion Week is becoming an observatory on slow fashion and the new frontiers of contemporary craftsmanship, with a focus on Asian fashion and a special section for sustainable designers and companies made in Veneto.

The next edition of Venice Fashion Week will take place from March 18 to 21, 2020.

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Photos are by Igor Serdyukov @serdyukovigor, Marta Formentello @itsmartaeffe, Settimo Cannatella @seventhsoul, Renzo Carraro @renzo.carraro.photo, Roberto Rosa @r2photo, Rossana Viola @rossviola for Venezia da Vivere.