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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From Noto With Love

September 4, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

These past two weeks, I had the most amazing time discovering Sicily – so expect some sun-drenched content coming this week! During our first days on the island, we stayed in one of the most charming towns I’ve ever been to – Noto. In contrast to big European cities, Southern region of Sicily has all the history of Rome along with the small-town breezy seaside charm of the Cinque Terre. Until you are in Noto, though, it’s hard to imagine just how close neighboring historic towns like Modica and Ragusa – and any number of Ancient Greek ruins and unspoiled beaches – are to the town center and to each other. Noto and its neighbors make sightseeing feel serendipitous, but it’s worth staying his for a couple of days to truly absorb the aura of this UNESCO-protected, eighteenth-century Baroque masterpiece of town. It’s easy to cover the town on foot in a single afternoon along its two main arteries, the Corso Vittorio Emanuele and the Via Cavour, which run east to west. Or if you use Noto as your base for exploring the region, as we did, you can walk the streets at a languorous gelato-eating pace at the end of each day, as if you lived there. My Noto guide is coming shortly – for now here are some captured moments (and plenty of cassatina!) of this Sicilian slice of heaven.

Photos by Edward Kanarecki. Don’t forget to follow Design & Culture by Ed on Instagram!

La Grotta Azzura. Emilio Pucci AW22

April 30, 2022 | Design & Culture by Ed

Emilio Pucci is one of these Italian luxury brands that have a rich, idiosyncratic legacy and a full package of well-known style codes, but somehow a number of contemporary designers that took it under their wings in the last couple of years never could put their finger on it. Maybe expect for Peter Dundas, whose ultra-sexy, jet-set nomad vision put Pucci on a very specific shelf of glossy Real-Housewives-kind-of clients. And then, suddenly, Camille Miceli arrived to this kaleidoscope-printed world in 2021. Her debut collection, entitled La Grotta Azzurra, is an optimistic start of the new Pucci chapter.

The designer touched down in Capri – Marchese Emilio Pucci’s beloved holiday destination – this week with her launch collection, making a splash in the late-April waters with an intense “experience” enjoyed by 160 guests flown in from Paris, Milan, and London. The US contingent was represented by the rapper Gunna, whose performance capped off three Pucci-fied days of activations and dolce vita – decadent dinners and hours-long lunches at Bagni di Tiberio; morning yoga classes for stylish Pucci yoginis; and “how-to-style-a-scarf” lessons in the label’s store on Via Camerelle. The see-now, buy-now collection was presented live in various tableaux vivants throughout the island, with Pucci-clad models looking very Slim Aarons in the surroundings. “Pucci isn’t a conceptual brand, it’s a lifestyle brand, so its message has to be direct,” she said. For Miceli it means energizing it further, amping up the joie de vivre factor already embedded in its codes. Energy is an attractive trans-generational attitude, and permeating the label with a positive, slightly trippy vibe will help engage for a wider, younger audience. Miceli also highlighted what she called Pucci’s “humanity and peculiar sensibility,” which she enhanced, for example, by creating hand-drawn iterations of the famous prints. “I think that digitized patterns strip Pucci’s motifs of the imperfections that are part of their unique charm,” she explained. In the new collection, which is full of simple (and at points simply plain, like all the active-wear), casual separates, the patterns’ pyrotechnics are offset by the use of few solid colors. Being a skilled accessories designer, Miceli has cleverly expanded the offer, working around the shape of two interlocked little fishes, playfully replicating the P in Pucci. The designer had it tranlated into enameled bracelets and metallic necklaces; into the outlined rubber soles of funny flip flops; into buckles decorating wooden clogs and high-shine platforms; and into a cute bag shaped like a fish. The Pucci reboot will proceed along a non-seasonal cadence. “The idea of season is démodée,” Miceli said, so jumping on the fashion show merry-go-round isn’t on the agenda yet. “It’s easy to have models walking a catwalk, but this see-now, buy-now formula with monthly new drops keeps you on your toes, creatively speaking, as you have to constantly find new ideas to engage the customers.” Rarely this strategy worked for other brands, but for Pucci – which largely is a “resort” label – that might the right path.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Italian Summer. Valentino Resort 2021

July 7, 2020 | Design & Culture by Ed

This is the ideal summer state of mind: Mariacarla Boscono dancing, laughing and sun-bathing at the Italian sea-side, wearing Valentino and being photographed by her friend – and the brand’s creative director – Pierpaolo Piccioli. Italy was the European country that was first tragically hit by COVID-19, and to many it seemed that good days aren’t coming back anytime soon. Now the country seems to gradually revive and the dream Italian summer is back on track. Optymism is winning. “I never stopped working,” Piccioli told Vogue during a Zoom call. “I profoundly love what I do; this is my passion, something fundamental for me – it isn’t just work.” The resort 2021 collection is the byproduct of the time spent alone drawing and painting, while remaining connected with his team. “I wanted to convey spontaneity and truth, even imperfection—but it’s the feel of human imperfection you long for right now,” he explained. “The collection was born out of flat drawings – paper and pencil, no styling, no mood board, just researching on paper shapes that linger in your head. A pure fashion process, as it should be done.” The human quality of creativity is paramount to Piccioli’s practice. He has imbued the rarefied world of couture with emotional values – exposing and revealing its craft and handmade processes, and shining a light on his team of seamstresses and artisans as essential players behind his fabulous creations. This center still firmly holds. “I wanted [to communicate] something even more personal, very close to myself. Conveying a sense of intimacy, a sentiment of individual connection, of emotion. I decided to photograph the collection myself because it seemed more coherent in this moment to send out a message with no filters, no manipulation, no other interpretation or mediation. I didn’t want the usual glamour of a fashion shoot,” he continued. “What I was interested in focusing on was what I’ve missed most in this confinement – the simple feeling of human connection, of shared love and friendship. This is what I wanted to bring about in my images.” Not surprisingly, simplicity is the collection’s key word. “It’s a radical simplicity though,” reflected Piccioli. “I wanted to be even more radical, in that the simplicity I’ve tried to achieve in shapes, volumes, and construction comes at the end of a process of resolved complexities. It’s a study and a project on cut, proportions, balance. Reducing and subtracting to reach the core, something essential and pure – but not more banal. Simple, not simplified.” There’s an ease and a fluidity of movement, a feel for freedom and effortlessness exuding from the lean silhouettes of caftans, elongated shift dresses, capes, and separates. Defined by strong, solid colors inspired by Mark Rothko’s chromatically powerful palette, pure shapes were infused with a vibrant, joyful flair. A few prints inspired by 18th-century tapestries were rendered as inconspicuous abstract strokes of color, as if they were just traces of memories, or shadows of the decorative motifs’ former selves. And what’s more special than a dear friend you’ve known and loved for years? “Mariacarla and I, we go back a long way,” he said. A spontaneous energy radiates from the images, shot by Piccioli in the natural surroundings of his home: a lake where he goes swimming; a sulfur mine where Pier Paolo Pasolini shot some scenes from his 1964 movie Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo. There’s a palpable sense of intimacy and of a familiar bond between photographer and model. Again, individuality and humanity are the pivots around which the collection, which was designed to appeal to both genders, came alive.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.

Torino Addresses

February 5, 2020 | Design & Culture by Ed

Here’s my Torino guide I’ve promised a couple of days ago! Hope it will inspire your visit to this delightful, Italian city. Enjoy!

Porta Di Savona

The room is charming if sparsely decorated, with marble floors, paneled walls, white tablecloths, and a little bar with a nice selection of aperitivi. All the dishes you want in the Piedmont are on the menu (the ultimate heaven: agnolotti, vitello tonnato, braised beef, and the best panna cotta ever!), and all taste the way you want them to.

Piazza Vittorio Veneto 2

Palazzo Madama

Having played a leading role in its history from Roman times through to the present day, Palazzo Madama was declared a World Heritage Site with the other Residences of the House of Savoy in 1997. The visit covers four floors, where the centuries-old story of its construction interacts with the collections of the Museo Civico d’Arte Antica, which have been here since 1934. The early centuries of the Middle Ages are illustrated in the Mediaeval Stonework Collection on the moat level, with its sculptures, mosaics, and jewellery dating from the Later Antique period to the Romanesque. The fifteenth-century rooms on the ground floor contain paintings, sculptures, miniatures and precious objects from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, mainly from Piedmont. In the circular room in the Treasure Tower there is a selection of masterpieces, including the famous Portrait of a Man by Antonello da Messina. On the piano nobile, with its stunning array of Baroque stuccoes and frescoes, there is the modern picture gallery with works from the Savoy Collections and an important selection of furniture made by Piedmontese, Italian, and French master cabinetmakers. Lastly, the top floor houses the decorative arts collections, which are a key part of the museum’s assets, with majolica and porcelain, glasswork and ivories, fabrics and lace, jewellery and metals, as well as the stunning collection of gilded, painted and sgraffito glass, unrivalled in terms of its quantity and quality.

Piazza Castello

Parrot & Palm

Probably the most chic boutique in Turin. From selection of niche Italian perfumes to affordable and stylish ready-to-wear labels, this place will charm you with its selection and beautiful, vintage-infused interior. Italians have their style, but in Turin, there’s a sense of non-chalant, born-with elegance.

Via Maria Vittoria 28/G

Da Michele

A treasure trove of taste since 1922, enclosed within the magnificent Piazza Vittorio Veneto and passed down from generation to generation. Daily offers at Da Michele are their unmistakable Pan Pizza and Farinata baked in their wood-fired oven as well as their authentic and tasty home-style cooking which showcases both Piedmont and Tuscan cooking traditions. Drooling.

Piazza Vittorio Veneto 4

Torino Mercato

I always think that in order to disover an Italian city, you’ve got to visit its market first. Looking at all the beautiful artichokes, baby tomatoes and courgette flowers available at Turin’s central market, you can tell this city is worth staying in for a while.

Piazza della Repubblica

Serienumerica

Born in Turin, Serienumerica is a brand that considers the constant research and experimentation its main features. The two designers, Maria De Ambrogio and Stella Tosco, focus mainly on knitwear and leather accessories, working closely with Italian artisans and breaking away form usual schemes, reinterpreting the culture of the product. Serienumerica proposes luxury clothes with clean lines, beautiful leather bags and leather backpacks. Their store is also their studio, where all the knits are produced. You are more than welcome to take a look at it!

Via Bonelli 3

Royal Palace of Turin

Palazzo Reale di Torino is a sixteenth-century palace constructed for the House of Savoy, which ruled Turin until the late nineteenth century. Originally built in the 16th century, it was modernized by Christine Marie of France in the 17th century with designs by Baroque architect Filippo Juvarra. The palace was converted to a museum in 1946 and, in 1997, it joined the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites. The lavishly-decorated rooms feature 17th-century carved furniture, tapestries, paintings, and frescoes. Visitors can tour the first-floor royal apartments, ballroom, throne hall, gallery, and Royal Library, which displays a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci from 1512. The adjacent Royal Armory features one of the world’s largest collections of weapons – and it’s a visual treat.

Piazzetta Reale 1

All photos by Edward Kanarecki.