Milan – the Balaklava trend # 1- One Size fits all. The One Size Fits All exhibition at Palazzo Morando, a project by Ivano Atzori, with the cooperation of the City of Milan, enlists influential names in today’s fashion world to interpret an object/icon dear to the artist himself: the ski mask. With this collaboration, Atzori uses his past as Italy’s most well known vandal, as a graffiti artist, previously known as Dumbo, to stoke the creativity of the fashion world. "Fashion is not only transformation or disguise but also a transfer of identity,” explains the Minister of Culture for the City of Milan, Massimiliano Finazzer Flory. “These ski masks play with all three of these roles. The ambiguity of these head coverings is ripe terrain for artwork because they evoke feelings of psychological uneasiness as well as physical security. We wanted to support this project because, in this case, fashion is rivaling the gaze, the eyes: a ski mask can hide a face, but not the eyes that continue to seduce, to entice and to interrogate us.”
Above: ski masks designed by, Neil Barrett, Vivienne Westwood and Bernhard Willhelm.
The Balaklava trend - One Size fits all. A ski mask designed by Neil Barrett. The exhibition was divided into two elements: the ski masks themselves, on individual pedestals and fifteen large format photographs portraying the ski masks, intimate and guarded images that succeeded in being romantic and provocative at the same time.
The Balaklava trend - seen at Marni. Art critic and author, Mariuccia Casadio, wrote the One Size Fits All’s exhibition text.
The Balaklava trend # 3 – seen at Missoni. Invited by Angela Missoni, Aldo Lanzini attends the Missoni fashion show with a group of 30 people wearing his crochets for faces (inspired by the revolutionary balaklavas), from the serie: the eyes are there where they see, the things are there where they are seen. Aldo Lanzini starts his research on crochet techniques as a sculptural practice in 1995, investigating the practices of the making as acts of construction of the everyday life. He is currently presenting a solo exhibition, The drop at Le Case D' Arte in Milan.
Above. Aldo Lanzini, one of his crochet balaklavas and Nicoletta Branzi.