Contacto: a link with Puglia art/handcraftsmen

photos by Giulia Agostini and Yulissa Aranibar Espinoza

Contacto exhibition has travelled a lot before arriving in Milan at Aria Savona during the Female Fashion week SS09. Indeed, this display coming from Puglia region and showing the best of its brains has passed through Bari, Brussellex, Turin and it is arriving even in Vilnius, the European culture capital 2009. In terms of time, it started on September 2007 when ICE (Italian international trading institute)decided to develop a managerial course in order to expand the local textile factories in South Italy internationally.

As Daniele Del Genio, Calceviva-Rossorame’s executive, explained me, that project aimed to provide managers of Puglia with the current, technical knowhow and the comprehension of the relevance of giving meaning to products. That’s why they created a cross between fashion, interior design and art in this exhibition.

Basically, equal space has been given to each firms displayed as it is used in a house. And the domestic light, in place of tradition, seems to be the link of everything. For example, different garments are re-used as a lamp, or a pillow or a chair, using artistic creativity to design elements from consumed fashion.

From the concept home to the mother-country ones: “made in Italy” above all as a well-known brand of high quality. Foreigner visitors are more aware of this and pay more attention of what happens in the content of the exhibit from their external point of view. On the other hand, Italian prefers to look at the nice, cute, pretty design of the flat wall. One day, they’ll be bumping into it and discovering that they will have to look up to this project, keeping up to date.

Give new life and idea to everything, and mainly to economy.