Design, sculpture and specialized manufacturing for high fashion meet in the architecture of the Galleria Giordani during Milan’s Fuori Salone. Graziano Giordani, enlightened entrepreneur, has succeeded in combining passion and foresight in the creation of Graziano Ricami, pushing it to the limits of excellence in high fashion, thanks to his mastery of the art of embroidery, which the entrepreneur has transformed into competitive value with the exclusive workmanship used for luxury garments.

In addition to the entrepreneur, the Gravity project involves the designer Riccardo Diotallevi and the sculptor Giuliano Giuliani, along with a team of highly qualified professionals, all exclusively from Italy’s Marche region. The arts come together in this project to make a mark, to give a destination to things, to the territories and to the people who inhabit them, particularly to Ascoli, the place affected by the earthquake.

The tenacity of the people of the Marche region is supported by their inventiveness and willingness to conceive a better future, imagining a new way of doing things, uniting creative forces. These premises form the basis for Gravity, a system that lends environments a degree of ‘wearability’ by way of a spatial structure in wood that can be ‘dressed’ in embroidered fabrics. The adjustable display of wooden tubes, connected by a simple metal node, makes up a structural framework for squared panels and rounded forms in embroidered fabric.

This is the starting point for creating vertical, horizontal, or slanted surfaces and giving environments a sense of space and comfort. Gravity is the most suitable term to describe the theme: it defines both the force of gravity and the state of solemnity and austerity that the earthquake has imposed. The embroidered weft of the fabrics graphically traces the seismographic record of where the oscillations of the Apennines are evidence of telluric movements.

The graphic embellishments were made with colored embroidery enhanced with sequins skillfully worked in the composition of an image of exceptional taste for quality environments. The negative event that occurred in the territory of the Marche was interpreted as a generator of a new energy that jolts the souls of the people towards a positive capacity for creating value. Gravity is not just an experiment but also a thorough research operation that flows into a system of interior furnishings, which aims to communicate how creativity and ingenuity are able to activate social dynamics to overcome adversity.

At the center of the installation is an exhibition of sculptures by Giuliano Giuliani, an artist from Ascoli who lives viscerally in touch with his material, travertine. His works bear witness to the precariousness of our time through the use of local stone, in which cavities, crevices and cuts inflicted on the forms relieve the material of its intrinsic gravity through his light, incisive art. Art and creativity are fundamental elements in situations of “gravity” as they offer a real possibility for overcoming adversity.

A concrete example of this best practice is how Graziano Ricami responded when confronted with the immediate emergency of the earthquake; they set up meetings and discussions between the public and private sectors with the aim of returning to an atmosphere of positivity. To give support and help in the development of this ambitious project, are his two children, Adriano e Antonio who, in work as in life, follow in their father’s footsteps, and together with him, carry this ambitious project forward.

Design: Galleria Giordani