Request: A book that celebrates the devotion to craftmanship in Italian fashion.
Result: After nearly 30 years in business, Cortigiani received for the first time compliments from the Head of the Italian Chamber of Fashion. Black hard cover, matt paper and 3 silk bookmarks, one for each decade. The book celebrates the Italian handmade culture of the Company.
“Style means knowledge, careful choice of materials and exclusive, sometimes unrepeatable techniques. Style means passion. It means the thrill of choosing a fabric and thinking that one day it will be worn by a man who knows how to combine elegance and spontaneity with innovation and perfection. A man and his life, his dreams, his emotions. A fabric that will become part of a unique story.
The Beginning.
The sons of a land where the most beautiful things are made by craftsmen with great know-how who have modelled immortal materials.
The curiosity of discovering the secrets of a trade, the desire to give form to a cut of fabric and to understand a man’s needs.
Feeling overwhelmed by the courage to travel a path of continuous change, mirroring fashions and trends.
This courage is called the present, and day after day it gives life to a future that will never forget its roots.
The Eighties.
The decade of change and innovation, of eccentric, excessive fashion: a source of inspiration to draw on, yesterday and today.
The seasons change, styles are renewed, but everyone once in a while a detail, a hue or a motif comes up that recalls the 80s: when it all started.
The Nineties.
Adopting new techniques and choosing new fabrics. Shortening the distance between what we wear and what we would like to wear, to feel good about ourselves.
Discovering new materials and giving life to something that will change the way we dress forever.
The Two Thousands.
Ambition. The search for a new style. The start of a boundless era in which drawing a model is not enough: we need to think up and create a definite style. This is the time to abandon the soft, embracing lines with a lively personality and discover clean lines, imperceptible details, controlled use of colour. Seeking a material that doesn’t exist yet, a cut that has no name. The zeros marked a turning point: the future is every day, an extraordinary experience.
Handmade, still.
Craftsmanship and the handmade: the choices of people who know themselves and what they want.
Knowing yourself is a luxury that not everyone has the courage to concede themselves. It’s a choice that requires a profound knowledge of yourself,
conveying your passion for life and underlining a personality capable of observing what happens, accepting change and looking at yourself critically, without ever losing sight of your personality and the awareness that you are unique.
Foundations.
Links with your native land are very important to give form to what you want to become, day by day. Cultivating your dreams without betraying your roots is the first step to building what you want.
Keeping your sights set on your dreams allows you to take advantage of all the opportunities that come along and offers an extraordinary opportunity to improve on your plans and expand your point of view.
Only by realising that you can improve, you can look forward to the future in the awareness that everything around you is changing and the most important challenge is knowing how to grow while keeping your roots alive.”
Photographer: http://valentesergio.it/
PAOLO PROSSEN 