Autumn - Winter 2013 - 14

"Fashion Forgery"

The A/W 13/14 Carlotta Actis Barone Collection is a tribute to feminine art and sensitivity. This season, the images and concept references of the collection were inspire by the Italian born artist: Manuela Corti. “New geometric era”, the artistic movement where Manuela’s work started, was a current of the 1990s, and inspired by the Cubism and Dadaism eras of the beginning of last century. Before that,it was the “geometric phase” of ancient Greek art. Manuela followed her own path, breaking away from the big U.S. current, developing an original three-dimensional link between painting and sculptures. Carlotta Actis Barone A/W 13/14 is a collection of contrasts: old and new, light and heavy, black and white. On the same wavelength, the linear 2D cuts of the garments; are used as a contrast, as they create a 3D effect, which enhances the female body. The clothes are sophisticated and elegant, giving the women who wear them a 1930s’ aura of refinement that reassesses the contemporaneous style of the Tamara de Lempika paintings and the ever so classic Coco Chanel. The fabrics are assembled as a contrast between flowing (the soft pleated nets), the semi-rigid (the faux leather), in-between the transparent (the fine nets) and the opaque (the thick jerseys and wools). Shapes and textures tell the story of the intricate female mind, which makes women so fascinating and mysterious. Two original 1990s art works by Manuela Corti (exclusively given for this collection) are the graphic base of fabric prints, whose weave recalls the slogans “Fashion Forgery” and “Fashion Clockwork”. These slogans are explicit in the bodysuits, the B line of Carlotta Actis Barone, hallmark of all her collections. The collection is formed in the majority of dresses, cocktail dresses and evening gowns, but also elegant jackets and coats. The colours that run through the garments are mainly blacks, whites and their shades, like cream and greys, to better express the stratification of the elements and the beauty of the contradictions when they are assembled together.