RATTI: CULTURAL CONVERGENCE INDUSTRY PROJECT

RATTI
Project: CULTURAL CONVERGENCE
Project Leader: Daphne Karras, Freelance designer AZ Factory; Head Designer Menswear Knitwear
Master in Fabrics Innovation Design, a.y. 2022/2023

Industry Project in collaboration with RATTI, Rita Balzaretti, Product Manager Ratti and Elhamalsadat Sakaki, Collection Coordinator.

From the Ratti Spa website “Como, the capital of silk, cradled our birth in 1945, the year in which the founder Antonio Ratti decided to start producing and selling refined and exclusive prints and fabrics, with the aim of growing, day after day, without ever forgetting one’s roots. Today we collaborate with the most important luxury and prêt-à-porter fashion houses worldwide because, just like them, we love details and beauty, elements that distinguish all our creations. Craftsmanship, stylistic research, creative flair and technological innovation are the essential elements from which we start to create unique creations, exclusive prints and designs capable of captivating every admirer.”

Industry Brief

“When you go back in time you also enter the future.”
Vivienne Westwood

“Knowledge of the past generates new ideas and creates new forms of beauty.”
Cav. Antonio Ratti

Traditional fabrics linked to the history and territory of a people still influence fashion today.

Contemporary. The techniques of cutting and making a dress, the structure and color of the fabric, embroideries and applications of traditional clothes are studied and reworked by designers to create a modern look. Thanks to the skill of the craftsmen, the designers can create a unique and lively garment combining ancient knowledge with contemporary techniques and fabrics.

Designers and creative directors have always worked on distant cultures and ethnographies and on traditional techniques and dressing styles belonging to the most disparate eras. The search process though it must be in-depth and personal, transformative, and innovative in order not to fall into deja vu but, on the contrary, to structure a radically different vision of the future. Knowledge of the past represents the cultural basis of every creative, defines the foundations of an advanced process e it is based on the knowledge of the society that has built aesthetic canons of one type rather than another. Without reaching an anthropological reading it is important for a contemporary designer act with great competence and depth to avoid falling into the trap of cultural appropriation.

The objective of this project is the definition of a research and the development of a new design that part of the personal and informed interpretation of the tradition linked to one’s own, or to other cultures, using an original and innovative language with modern tools that today’s technology makes us available.

Thanks to Ratti for allowing our students to fully immerse themselves into this project.