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subscribe to style file blog via RSSportrait of the designer as a young artist
September 22, 2008 9:02 am
“I still think of myself as an artist, really,” says Paris-based Roberta Furlanetto, who was on her way to a lifetime of gallery shows and paint-splattered jeans when she had a chance meeting with Christian Lacroix in the early nineties. The designer asked Furlanetto to work on his next haute couture show; special projects for the likes of Ungaro, Alaïa, and Dior followed. Her first ready-to-wear collection, which is just now arriving in stores, is animated both by her background in the arts and her experience creating couture—to wit, the so-called “robot coat.” “I think that coat expresses the essence of what interests me as a designer. The fabric is something I developed myself, from a piece of vintage velvet lamé that I adapted and embroidered. The result was so metallic that it immediately struck me as the perfect vehicle for a shape that was strong and simple and sculptural, but also form-fitting and quite feminine.” For Spring 09, which Furlanetto showed in Milan yesterday, she introduced footwear. “I spent so long collaborating that now that I have the chance to express myself completely, it makes no sense not to have the shoes that complete the look. The shoes are my way of finishing the sculpture.”
tags: Roberta Furlanetto
