By Giulia Piceni. Cover image by Gerardo Gazia. Courtesy of Pitti Immagine.
After his appearance as Guest Designer at the 105th edition of Pitti Uomo, Luca Magliano aa a designer has bewitched the fashion world once again with his powerful iconography of the province, cementing his position as the leading name of contemporary Made in Italy. But what exactly is the recipe for his success? Discover 5 reasons driving this fashion frenzy.
1. Luca Magliano as designer is a living proof that kindness can bring you far
“It’s a beautiful feeling to be seen“, Luca Magliano whispered into the microphone with a quivering voice as he accepted the award, not for the podium but the one named after Karl Lagerfeld. Humility and kindness are qualities of a great soul that are impossible to ignore, and his friendliness makes it difficult not to sympathise with him.
Talent, accompanied by strength of will and a well-defined vision for one’s brand, together with a communicative urgency that only belongs to great designers, are the main qualities needed to be selected for the prestigious LVMH Prize. Luca Magliano certainly possesses them all. His level of humanity shines through in his creations, a universe of values made up of a poetic fusion of rural and industrial elements with the power to seduce both those who have experience of these places and those who are completely unfamiliar with them.
2. The brand Magliano turns the spotlight to a less glamorous side of Italy
I always thought that if the project of Luca Magliano designer were an art installation, it would be the Italian Pavilion at the last Venice Biennale by Gian Maria Tosatti, an abandoned industrial hub from the 1960s with austere working-class interiors, accompanied by the darkness of the night and the twinkling of the stars.
With the creation of his eponymous brand, Luca Magliano has brought to life his personal poetic vision that explores themes of the ugly and the sordid, introducing a sense of reality to fashion, showcasing the raw, unglamorous side of the Italian province while preserving its poetic essence.
It is undeniable that Magliano has become the face of contemporary Made in Italy, and his gentle creativity has paved the way for a new chapter in Italian fashion history
3. Campaigns that keep leaving us amazed
Magliano’s campaigns typically reflect manual labour and intense physical effort, portrayed through the emotional essence of imperfection and unpredictable brushstrokes in the brand’s FW 2024 campaign.
Magliano refers to a province with a dreamy atmosphere in his campaigns as well as his collections. He aims to highlight the unique appearance and personality of his subjects, and his garments aim to enhance the individuality of the wearers. Magliano is deeply interested in people – their actions, love stories, obsessions and struggles – and his clothing consistently delves into these abstract dimensions.
Indeed, it is not unusual to find individuals at the heart of advertising campaigns as the focal point of the visual narrative. For instance, the workers who helped create his collections became the models taking centre stage in the SS 2023 advertising campaign
4. Thanks to Luca Magliano designer’s work the LGBTQIA+ community has been significantly represented
Bologna holds a special place in the brand’s heritage as well as in the personal history of its creative director. Always against the tide and capable of courageously expressing its opinions by siding with those in need of political and cultural representation, the capital of Emilia Romagna has been at the forefront of the battle for LGBTQIA+ rights for decades, fearlessly leading the charge.
The renowned cultural and community hub il Cassero has developed and become and institution in the city, fighting political and cultural battles since the 1970s, from HIV and AIDS issues to non-binary body positivity.
Bringing the revolutionary soul of Bologna into each of his shows, Luca Magliano never fails to celebrate love in all its forms. His campaigns feature characters who are driven by internal struggles, attractions and tensions that can be felt even beyond the screen.
5. Luca Magliano has been a guest designer at Pitti Uomo Fair
As mentioned in a previous article, during the 105th edition of Pitti Uomo in Florence, Magliano took part in the event as a guest designer. The phrase “Carry intense emotions” was written in italic font with the letters printed on a light-coloured surface that had soapy water dripping on it to remove dirt. Needless to say, the show exceeded all expectations as usual.
A cold light illuminates the Nelson Mandela Forum’s steps in Florence, and in the negative image, you can see the first glimpse of it. It looks like an apparition from some Tarkovsky film. The steps glow with a livid light that accompanies the slow pace, allowing one to really admire the leaders. The steps of a stadium are a liminal place with no defining characteristics, where nothing is built, and very little happens. Yet it is within those concrete cutaways that Magliano envisions his provincial dream.
However, the lives of these comédie humaine characters, as described by fashion journalist Giuliana Matarrese1, have touched them, pushed them and made them fall. These individuals are men and women; they’re people who display the signs of ageing on their faces and bodies, in how they dress and how they occupy the space where they move. Magliano’s clothing designs can take you into an imperfect, non-idyllic world, undesirable for many, but which he is able to make dreamlike – but not in the Fellini-esque sense of the word.
Magliano does not deprive his universe of the rawest reality. His models are seen carrying shopping bags, wearing discoloured clothes, and jackets that appear to have been taken from a relative’s wardrobe out of necessity rather than for fashion. Magliano draws his creativity from the unattractive and portrays a cerebral province made up of failed poets, revolutionary workers with artistic aspirations and Trainspotting-like repressed hooligans who bring life to isolated car parks with their exultations.
And then the fatal blow: “Tentò la fuga in tram / Verso le sei del mattino / Dalla bottiglia di orzata / Dove galleggia Milano”. All the models ascend upwards to the source of light that generated them. They finally disappear into the light to the notes of La domenica delle salme by Fabrizio de André, a singer-songwriter known for anti-conformist beliefs, a trait which Luca Magliano also embodies.
- Matarrese, G. (2023). PRODIGIO ITALIANO | Luca Magliano si affida alla moda per riportare la periferia al centro. Linkiesta.it. Click here to read the article.
