Are you a 'Steve' (McQueen) or a 'Serge' (Gainsbourg)? A 'Franz' (Kafka) or a 'Jack' (Kerouak)? Antonio Marras (opens in new tab), one of Milan's most creative fashion designers, put these questions to the audience at his latest show for the handbag house of Piquardo (opens in new tab).
His capsule collection of multi-patched handbags, presented during Milan men's fashion week, was certainly a new step forward but the real originality came in his inventive installation: a series of tableaux vivants where the models emulated 'great travellers' of quintessential male-ness.
The characters posed, frozen, on stage sets within the gilded walls of Milan's Palazzo Clerici (opens in new tab). There was Joseph Beuys with his rucksack, perched on his latest anthropomorphic art installation; and Bob Dylan on a stage littered with marker-scrawled posters. Alberto Giacometti sat with a briefcase in his studio amid several haunting sculptures, McQueen on his bike carrying a satchel.
To elaborate without interfering with the still-life, Marras handed out an iPad with headphones to each guest, where he'd downloaded images and recordings for each vignette.
Novelist and travel writer Bruce Chatwin is seen here as the character 'Bruce'
The character in this room is called 'Léonard', after Léonard Tsugouharu Foujita, a Japanese painter and artist who adopted the name Léonard as a tribute to Leonardo da Vinci. Foujita was apparently obsessed with cats
Watch the video to see Marras' tribute to 'Léonard'
Serge Gainsbourg inspired this character 'Serge'
The room 'Joseph' depicts artist Joseph Beuys with his rucksack
'Steve', duly named after Steve McQueen, perches on a bike with his 'Departures' satchel
From left: 'Georges' and 'Bob', inspired by Georges Simenon and Bob Dylan respectively
Franz Kafka, one of literary history's greatest figures, is portrayed here as 'Franz'
From left: Installation views of rooms dedicated to the characters 'Bruce' and 'Joseph'
From left: Novelist Jack Kerouac; Steve McQueen
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