ON HOLD
WHEN COURAGEOUS RIGOR BECOMES PURE ELEGANCE
We are in Paris, and we are facing the stylistic courage of the first “designers” in History, who, placed between tradition and innovation, chose the... Futurism...
You must agree with me that it took a lot of courage to abandon the old, established and reassuring styles (we were in the age of Art Nouveau...), all aimed at curvilinear sinuosities and decorative embellishments, in order to seek the main line of an Elegance made of essentiality...
A little what happened to women's clothing (they went from very complicated lace to almost androgynous dresses..) and to the ever-feminine hairstyles, which went from wavy and baroque “heads” (like Scarlett O' Hara...) to Crepax's Valentina-like bob...
What many people don't know is that this movement originated in Italy, and it was always the Italians who refreshed it, just think of the successful participation of artists such as Balla, Depero and Prampolini in the 1925 Paris International Exposition, the same one that gave Art Deco its final legitimacy...
THIS CHIMNEY WAS CONCEIVED IN A PARISAN STUDIO (OR “ATELIER DES ARTS” IF YOU PREFER) IN THE 1920s, BUT I LIKE TO THINK THAT THE SAME CHIMNEY COULD FIND ITS OWN RIGHTLY ITALIANITY BOTH IN ITS RAFFINATED AND PRECIOUS MARBLE AND IN ITS OTHERWISE ITALIAN FUTURISTIC CORE.
