Palazzo Castelluccio in Noto

September 5, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

If you lose yourself to the streets of Noto, you will find incredible places to visit and fall in love with immediately. The Palazzo Castelluccio, belonging to one of the oldest families in Noto, was built in 1782 by the Marquis di Lorenzo del Castelluccio after the earthquake of 1693 which partly destroyed the region. The façade of the Palace, on Via Cavour, does not have the same baroque style used for the reconstruction of the main buildings of the city, but instead reflects the neo-classical taste popular in the late 18th century, which can be found in the well-preserved frescoes on the ceilings and walls of the main first floor. Four years of work were needed to revive the Palace, respecting its fine finishing and its history. The frescoes were cleaned and restored, the fabrics replaced and the silver wallpaper remade identically. A collection of Italian and Sicilian furniture and paintings restored the atmosphere of an inhabited palace. The music room, chapel and ballroom are testimony the power and good taste of a large aristocratic Sicilian family. After the death of the last Marquis of Castelluccio, the Order of Malta inherited the Palace and kept it for some years. When the current owner took possession in 2011, the Palace had been uninhabited for decades. The main first floor was in a terrible condition, and the doors, windows, paintings and electrical installations all had to be removed and replaced. Today, the colours have been restored to the grand staircase and its vases and extend a magnificent welcome to visitors…

Via Cavour 10

Photos by Edward Kanarecki.
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Out Of Office!

August 21, 2022August 21, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Prada spring-summer 2020 – collage by Edward Kanarecki

Just letting you know I’m O.O.O. for a much-needed, sun-drenched vacation! Make sure to follow me on Instagram in the meantime. See you on the blog in September, just in time for the fashion-month marathon…

Men’s – Tableau Vivant. KidSuper SS23

August 20, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Look 21 in KidSuper‘s spring-summer 2023 collection – a half-realized, elusive portrait on a pink sweater and pale cords – was based on an original painting called Con Artist. It was one of 23 Colm Dillane paintings, which in turn inspired the 23 looks in his KidSuper collection that were auctioned off by Christie’s Lydia Fenet live during his show. As each model walked, the audience had its chance to bid. The big spender was Russ – a close friend of Dillane – who apparently walked away with several paintings including the night’s headline sale, The Girl That Breathes Life Into The Inanimate (Lot and Look 23). After a fierce bidding war, Fenet eventually banged her gavel after Russ’s $210,000 bid went unmatched. In total, the paintings ‘sold’ for $529,000. This was all in itself a piece of performance art designed ingeniously to stretch the boundaries of the fashion show as visual theater. Dillane said afterwards that as he’d prepared for his first on-schedule Paris show, he’d been to some others and had been struck by the divide between audience and subject. “And I was like, how do I get people to interact and participate, and make it an experience. And I had always wanted to do an art show as a fashion show. And thinking about participation in an art show, that’s where the auction idea came from.” The auction was designed to animate the fashion show through artistic intervention. It was clever, fun, and funny. Apart from the clues to the process we were subject to in the names of some of the paintings, Fenet – who is absolutely masterful at extracting serious sums of money with the lightest of rhetorical touches – was apparently representing an auctioneer named Superby’s. We got no indication of her commission. When the final painting – named The Finale – emerged stretched on its frame, there was a hole where the on-canvas face of one of its subjects “should” have been. A model’s painted face loomed through it. Just as Fenet’s gavel went down, the canvas whisked from the frame to reveal itself as the upper layer in her tulle pentimento dress. This show raised many interesting ideas, including the notion of clothing reproduced with original artworks acting as wearable editions of those pieces.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Groovy. The Elder Statesman Resort 2023

August 17, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

There’s only one place in Paris where you can stand over a pool of koi and under a glittering disco ball. Dragons Elysées is a Chinese restaurant that delights in kitsch – and can hold, as a nighttime The Elder Statesman presentation proved, a surprising number of revelers. Even in the brand’s thick knits on a humid Parisian day, the guests didn’t have a lick of sweat beading. Just one way Bailey Hunter, the creative director, is innovating at the Los Angeles-based label. The other way is that she is bringing the vibes back to one of fashion’s vibiest brands. Throughout the pandemic, founder Greg Chait took immense pride in the way The Elder Statesman was innovating and bringing most of its operations in-house. A new yarn-spinning technique, he said during his Paris event, would take at least a week to understand. But for all the ways the label reimagines its lightweight wovens, its groovy patterned knits, and its hand-done embroidery, crocheting, and dyeing, the special sauce of TES is its mood. That radiated during this crowded Parisian show. Chait and Hunter should stick with the idea and bring their party-presentations to more locations around the globe.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Tensions. Khaite Resort 2023

August 13, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Khaite‘s resort 2023 collection, as Cate Holstein went on to explain, picks up where the “sharp, stealth New York woman” aesthetic of her autumn-winter runway left off. Let’s say there’s a whole lot of badassery happening, from the leather chokers that accent nearly every look on down to the blunt-toed boots. Leather outerwear is a foundational category at Khaite. Cropped motorcycle jackets mingle with oversized bombers, including one that opens the lookbook with heavy-duty studding at the shoulders. The tailoring, in leather and otherwise, takes its proportions from menswear. “We’re predominantly a feminine brand,” Holstein said, “but in order to bring out that femininity you have to have elements of men’s, otherwise it goes in a girly direction, which we try to steer clear from.” It’s not that there aren’t girly embellishments here. Sequins are another recurring motif, as seen on a shift dress with a mock turtleneck as easy-wearing as a t-shirt and on a slip dress that grazes the ankle. The most novel pieces however involved not surface treatments, but volume play. A yoke-waisted skirt that ballooned out to the knees and a plissé shirtdress with poet sleeves were surprise hits of sweetness amidst the collection’s stealth glamour.