Spring - summer 2014

"Futuristic Retrò"

The woman of the new SS 2014 collection by Carlotta Actis Barone is a survivor of a nuclear apocalypse.
Surviving from a world of technology and synthetic materials, she is now trying to go back to the natural ways, wearing cottons and silks that she can manufacture without altering or damaging the environment anymore than what already is.
She wants to do no more damage to the hearth now destroyed, but, like the Phoenix, she is trying to reborn from the ashes.
She obviously brings with her many reminiscences of the past, the remains of the previous industrial ways are all around her, but she uses them as decorative “fossils”, recycling metal scraps as jewels, or incorporating them in her clothes, like the chains that lock the holes in her dresses, or the glass chips that decorate some items, she doesn’t need them any more then for a history momentum.

The effects of the nuclear war have genetically modified her and her clothes, the seems for example, are wavy other then straight, all she wears is dramatically asymmetric, the are no conventional patterns to be followed, just different patterns and textures put together as the “new mutated nature” intended.

She is also looking towards the future, fiery and fearless, wearing her garments with innovation and nonconformity, for example, what could look like an elegant cocktail dress is actually made out of a strong waterproof military fabric, and instead of hiding or adjusting the holes that the bomb created in her clothes, she is wearing them proudly, actually enhancing them with decorative chains.
 
Been survived to a war, the scenario that she clearly remember is mostly the soldiers fighting, so, as an imprinted memory, the items she wears come from a camouflage colour palette, such as military green, mud, beige, skin pink.

Still a glamorous woman, she cares about her make-up and hairstyle, explosive and unconventional, and her jewellery are metallic fragments melted from the forge of an apocalyptic fire.
She is gazing the horizon, using the remains of the old industrial world, in a very futuristic and unconventional way, giving her a sort of a steam punk feel, she is not going back to a world without technology, but she is just using it differently and less invasively, to be friendly with the hearth that created her, rather then destroying it again, and all of that makes her a futuristic retro new woman.