HOPERAPERTA

 Eccentrica

by Martina Barberis Casagrande

Eccentricity has always fascinated me. It must come from a natural disposition, which goes hand in hand with culture. Otherwise it is out of place. I think fashion is another thing. It is fast and it changes with time.

In this particular historical moment, I think that eccentricity is seen as something crazy, especially when it praises freedom. It can be represented by a very simple person or by an avid traveler. It involves curiosity and it is just not given by the "getting noticed" concept. There are many figures who try to be eccentric but, often, this desire is simply given by the ambition to imitate great artists (such as David Bowie, Marcel Duchamp etc ...).

I associate eccentricity with a particular form of culture, an extravagance, a letting it go, a particular form of freedom. From the Latin eccentricus, outside the center, it is a word that I immediately connect to characters such as Oscar Wilde or Diana Vreeland, Salvador Dalí, Jean Cocteau, Elsa Schiaparelli, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Karl Lagerfeld, Josephine Baker, Carlo Mollino, Ettore Sottsass and many others.

Are cities like Paris or London, which have always loved different forms of eccentricity and provocation, still free to express this particular form of art?

Flash examples of small eccentricities that I have still impressed in my memory: a fake bust of a huge giraffe that I saw in the house of designer Ora Ito in Paris, photographs of actresses from the 50s in the house of a designer of a super French fashion brand, the frescoes or the fabrics decorated as canvases in the house of a Venetian lady who lives in the palace of Marco Polo (so the legend goes), Giovanni Gastel who, at a Cova event, with a gentleman's gesture, collects the chocolate from a stranger. Finally, a theater carved into the rock designed by the set designer Luciano Damiani in Rome, or the bandana (foulard) of the Italian actress Valentina Cortese.

The memory I have of a person whom I consider eccentric, despite its simplicity: my very first boss, a Spaniard. When I was very young, I sent my CV to several contact emails which I picked up here and there (so naive). One day, a man with a blatant Spanish accent called me "Hello, can you hear me?" "Yes, I can hear you" "I have received your CV. Come and have an interview!”. I went, I did the interview, he took me. “You will see, it will be difficult to have another boss like him, he is special”, more people told me. He was adored and well known. Of humble origins, he was proud to tell about his childhood at the Delta near Barcelona. A highly cultured and refined man, also because of his simplicity that coexists perfectly with his eccentricity of spirit.

His experience in fashion began in the nineties with Moschino, Fiorucci, Aspesi, Blumarine etc. While I was working for Aspesi, I had the opportunity to know the clothes he had designed and the photographers he had wanted: Robert Frank, Peter Lindbergh, Paolo Roversi were just some of the authors he had worked with. Among the models, a very young Linda Evangelista, who was still not very well known. My eyes widen with amazement, while I see so many authorial photographers loaned to fashion. Then Moschino, Fiorucci, of course, and many others. I still remember his position in the company. There was a pile of fog, a cigarette, an ashtray and a man talking behind a computer which was hiding him. His taste is eccentric, but at the same time simple. He has a strong relationship with color.

In the houses, however, what could be eccentric? A particular vase, an exotic carpet, a strange color? Anything that can recall a story, a journey or personal passions: a book, a film, a song. Freedom and innate expression (not forced). A room full of objects, a painter's studio, a lost house on the top of an island.