In Milan, Tiziano Guardini’s capsule collection made with Bevilacqua fabrics

In Milan and Venice, Tiziano Guardini’s limited edition created to speak about sustainability by Veneto companies with fabrics from Tessitura Luigi Bevilacqua

Precious and sustainable garments made with damasks and soprarizzo velvet from the Luigi Bevilacqua weaving mill: Venice’s historic craftsmanship, Veneto manufacturing, and contemporary design are the protagonists of Milan Fashion Week and Venice.

It is a project involving a sustainable designer, nine Veneto companies, an ancient Venetian weaving mill founded in 1499 and operating on the Grand Canal, the Veneziadavivere network, and the Venice Fashion Week event. The objective: to promote Venice’s high craftsmanship and the Veneto fashion system.

The team: 95 meters of precious fabrics from the Antica Tessitura Luigi Bevilacqua, purchased thanks to EBAV’s contribution. A designer, Tiziano Guardini, “the designer of nature,” recognized by the United Nations, exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, awarded at the Green Carpet Fashion Award with the Franca Sozzani prize. Nine Veneto companies among regional Confartigianato, CNA, and Confindustria, the advanced point of an extraordinary Veneto supply chain that still consists of over 6,000 workshops today, making Veneto one of the few areas in Europe with an almost intact supply chain. A network of web magazines, social media, and events, Venezia da Vivere, created to tell the story of a living and creative Venice through culture, fashion, design, craftsmanship, and lifestyle, and Venice Fashion Week, an event that brings sustainable, artisanal, and sartorial fashion to Venice twice a year.

The capsule collection: designer Tiziano Guardini has created a limited series of coats, jackets, trousers, skirts, shirts, and evening gowns, made with fabrics from the ancient Venetian weaving mill Luigi Bevilacqua, celebrated by Dior, Valentino, Dolce & Gabbana, and other luxury and international haute couture brands.

Looking to the future: creativity and sustainable production processes are the themes of Tiziano Guardini’s mentorship to students of Veneto professional institutes in the sector, to connect Veneto companies with the contemporary creativity of the new generations of fashion.

A zero-kilometer collection: the collection is unique in its kind because it is produced by a network of small and medium Veneto enterprises that become protagonists once again of a “slow making” art thanks to knowledge that is handed down from the past into the contemporary, creating the conditions for sustainable luxury.

Sartorial craftsmanship, sustainability, respect for the environment, young people, Veneto, and Venice with its millennial artisanal heritage are the elements at the foundation of this experience.

Each garment is constructed thanks to the synergy between the designer and the companies, therefore it will be delivered with a label bearing the name of the person who made it, answering the question “Who Made My Clothes”. And since this is a collection made with archive fabrics, each garment will be numbered, as is done in the art market.

“The objective of this pilot experience—the organizers explain—is to enhance the Veneto fashion supply chain (one of the few that still has all processing phases present and active in knitwear, outerwear, leather goods, footwear, and eyewear), supporting companies (SMEs) alongside the main training institutions in the sector (professional schools and universities), with the shared objective of cultivating, developing, and enhancing young talents and relaunching skills in many crafts that today risk disappearing due to lack of generational renewal.

A collective project that brings together essential resources to compete on quality and pass on the great cultural, creative, technical, and industrial heritage of Made in Italy.

“A production process is replicable anywhere in a globalized context, but the culture, tradition, and artisanal expertise that creates our products is not replicable,” say the organizers. “It is precisely these intangible skills that we must transmit to the new generations, with a common denominator that can only be sustainability, understood as a professional opportunity and development of the entire regional fashion system.”

Green jobs in the fashion sector are gaining ground. Hence the choice to collaborate with Tiziano Guardini, a sustainable designer committed to using non-polluting raw materials and processes, with consequent energy and resource savings, enhancing the concept of social sustainability as well, through the recovery of local artisanal crafts.

The capsule collection created with Tiziano Guardini is also the pilot episode of an ongoing project that will also involve the Veneto Region: promoting Venice’s high craftsmanship and Veneto Fashion through an annual contest dedicated to students of professional institutes, to create sustainable fashion collections.

The project was born within Venice Fashion Week, an event that brings fashion to Venice twice a year, from an idea by Veneziadavivere, a communication network that wants Venice to be discussed in terms of culture, sustainable luxury, and creativity.

The 9 Veneto companies, members of regional Confartigianato, CNA, and Confindustria, that joined the project are:

Sinergy Fashion Group by Stefania Botton of Grantorto, Padua;

Tiemme s.a.s. di Tiziana Michieletto & C. of Morgano, Treviso;

La Pony Confezioni s.a.s. di Riccardo Antonio Barbato of Noventa Vicentina, Vicenza;

Ladystile srl in collaboration with Sartoria Paola Tognetti, of Schio, Vicenza;

Maison De Caro of Dosson di Casier, Treviso;

Ricamificio Gifa srl by Gianluca Fascina of Salzano, Venice;

Maglificio Miles by Michele Bocchese of Vicenza;

and finally two tailoring workshops:

Sartoria Gabriella Marin of Schio,

Atelier 23 by Fosca Parisi and Luna Pesce of Venice.

After Milan Fashion Week, Tiziano Guardini’s collection will be presented at Venice Fashion Week in Venice.

The next edition of Venice Fashion Week will take place in Venice in digital format.

Follow our channels to discover the program and how to get accredited for the events.

The photos are by:
Marta Formentello for Veneziadavivere
in studio: Davide Gallizio for Tiziano Guardini
dress with wild animals: Eleonora Palma
during the event: p&p fotografia for Tiziano Guardini