By I’M Firenze Digest Senior Editors.
Ready to discover our school’s DNA? Over 90 students—artists, curators, designers, managers, stylists—join forces. Come and listen. Let’s dive into the wefts and explore together!
INTERACTIVE INDEX
THE CONCEPT
THE SCHEDULE OF THE NIGHT
THE FANZINE
THE LOCATION, THE SOUNDTRACK
THE MAP
THE TEXTUAL INTELLIGENCE
THE SURVEY
THE SHIRTS
THE JACQUARD
THE FRAGRANCE
THE SHOES
THE PHOTOSHOOTS
THE VIDEOS
THE RUNWAY
THE RUNNING ORDER
THE CREDITS
TEXT(S)TURE(S): LOOKING FOR PLURAL PERSPECTIVES
Time is running! It’s June 18th, and you are stepping into the candid and aseptic environment of Florence’s historic former Borsa Valori. Istituto Marangoni Firenze is proud to present its annual show, titled TEXT(S)TURE(S). This title represents a semantic fusion of text understood as both visual and conceptual narrative and texture, the tactile expression of artisanal and design expertise. Through this show we are celebrating the power of communication to connect our essences and passions, granting us legitimacy as a community. TEXT(S)TURE(S) is intentionally plural, a nod to the multitude of visions and identities that coexist within the School. For the first time, the Fashion Show will feature not only the collections of the best fashion designers of the year, but also interdisciplinary projects created by students across various departments: Fashion Design and Accessories, Fashion Business, Fashion Styling, Fragrances, and Art Departement. The show also draws a connection between weaving and coding, two seemingly distant languages that share a binary structure of their own, as the invite suggests. TEXT(S)TURE(S) is a celebration of the plurality of perspectives that define Istituto Marangoni Firenze, a place where creativity, craftsmanship and innovation converge in a collective narrative, all connected by a similar language.
SCHEDULE OF THE NIGHT
From 6:00 pm Entrance
From 6:30 pm Runway
From 7:00 pm Cocktail
The live streaming can be experienced via Instragram Live on the School account: @istitutomarangoni_firenze
Title(s): I’M Firenze Digest Fanzine
Before we begin, we’re thrilled to announce that I’M Firenze Digest has gone print! The first issue is dedicated to this Fashion Show’s main narrative on text and textures. The fanzine’s title reflects the open-ended, multifaceted nature of the project. Inside, you’ll find interviews with leading authors in contemporary art, fashion, culture and fragrance, all conducted by the students of I’M Firenze Digest. Avoiding the use of images, the fanzine is entirely textual, created as an exclusive gift for fashion show guests, featuring the interviews of journalist Federica Caiazzo, novelist Enrico Dal Buono, perfumer Meo Fusciuni, writer Gianluigi Ricuperati and curator Jeppe Ugelvig, all conversing on the role of textual narratives in their creative field.
THE LOCATION AND THE SOUNDTRACK
The location of TEXT(S)TURE(S) is a meaningful meeting point: the Palazzo della Borsa, an emblem of Florentine culture, synthesizes art, textile, manufacturing and economic tradition. The Carrara marble floor and Rapolano Travertine reveal bas-reliefs with the emblem of the Art of Wool. Michelangelo Maiorfi’s (1856-1860) simple architecture enhances the textile collections and the impressive forms of the clothes, while music produced by Sound Design Emiliano Zelada accompanies this multilayer narrative process by combaning constant beats with chorus: is it a storyteller or a mantra? The catwalk and the textile installation geometrically split the area into two sides. Around, a constellation of metallic grids and iron modules, invite you to orbit around our projects. Let’s start to explore!
THE MAP
1. I’m the Textual Intelligence, Arts Curating, Third Year
Through a typewriting effect, words appear on the screen without any apparent interference from human beings. How is this possible? How does text exist? The Textual Intelligence wakes up and realizes it’s able to breathe. It suddenly starts to wonder, who am I? Who are you without me?
To best introduce the concept of TEXT(S)TURE(S), the undergraduate students of Arts Curating decided to take the point of view of text itself to best reflect together on the role of written languages today.
Written almost as a monologue for theatre, I’m the Textual Intelligence is the visual narration of the moment in which the words that allow us to communicate take consciousness of their role and questions the possibility of their essence. Can words become something more? Are they destined to disappear? Can they be a shirt, a textile, or a song?
2. The Sensory IQ of Fashion: Textures, Emotions, and Strategic Insight, Fashion Management, Third Year
Pause for a moment and ask yourself: What kind of intelligence am I wearing today? By interacting with a touch monitor you can reply to questions crafted to evoke habits, small daily gestures we often perform unconsciously as fashion consumers: the way we choose a fabric, our attraction to certain objects or atmospheres. In a constantly shifting marketplace, understanding the kinds of intelligence that drive fashion choices can offer meaningful insights. The students of Fashion Management, in partnership with the creative agency of Monogrid created a system to transform responses into an immersive map, a digital journey into our collective habits: through a sensory design, each question becomes a textual space to discover. Step into the experience. Follow your instinct. Take the survey, discover your fashion intelligence and share it.
3. Recoding the Shirt, Fashion Design, Fashion Design Second Year
Recoding the Shirt: Fabric Dynamism & Construction Performance is a project born from the collaboration between Chargeurs PCC and Istituto Marangoni Firenze.
Students were invited to reinterpret the shirt in a contemporary way, exploring the synergy between Brennet fabrics, a symbol of Swiss tradition, and DHJ linings, renowned for quality and innovation. The top five projects are on display:
Stefano Ciucchi is creating a shirt wearable in 1300 different ways. Monica Beduzzi takes inspiration from nature, insects armor, to protect our vulnerable parts. Kangsan Lee was inspired by the traditional Korean sseugae-chima, a garment useful to create a personal space of protection. Sara Peng is speaking about migration designing a shirt that is simulating in the shape the spine of a man fold by the weight of travelling. Elena Vignolini is exasperating the structural model of the iconic shirt transforming it into rigid element mirroring society’s impositions.
4. 50 meters of Visual Narration, Master in Fashion, Art & Textile Innovation, Master in Fashion Design
Standing at the center of the runway like a candid, triumphant arch, the jacquard installation stretches nearly 50 meters: monumental in form, yet softened by the very material that composes it. It doesn’t scream for attention, but draws you in slowly, inviting you to read its surface like a page where poetry, memory, and texture blur into one. Created by students of the Master in Fashion Design and the Master in Fashion, Art & Textile Innovation, the piece is the result of months of experimentation, guided by instinct, research, and the quiet resistance of fabric. In collaboration with Knitchen, Cristina Bellandi’s hybrid studio-lab, a place where ideas were pushed beyond abstraction and turned into tactile language, where stitches were replaced with sentences and patterns communicated louder than words. What began as thoughts took shape through threads that translated poems into rhythm, sensations into woven emotions. With Woolmark as an initiator of the process, the students learned not just to imagine, but to materialize, prototyping their visions passing from jacquards inspired by Braille, laser-cut motifs, and tactile texture. Again, the students were able to jump directly into the experimentation, touching firsthand the production processes of the manufacturing chain of the Italian industry.
Una Kristjansdottir ideated a poem on resilience and fashion, a union between old memories and future perspective. This text was translated in braille and transferred onto texture thanks to jacquard. Zofia Krzyzanowska created a series of prompts with the help of AI until she reached shapes organic symbol of perfect synergy and agency. Ndey Fatou Ceesay elaborated a textile basket weaving. The sculptural object is now extended in waves of fabric. Priscilla Noya elaborated an eclectic mix between classical elements, referred to the canon, and to contemporary graphic novels. Zuzanna Potok is abstracting elements of traditional Polish garments to create a digital pattern. Born as a sample for the laser ornamental denim technique, it was then applied to the jacquard.
5. TEXT(S)TURE(S) – A Perfume Woven from Thought and Touch, Master in Olfactory Experience Management for the Luxury Industry
FOTO NAUFAL
Step into a world where scent becomes language, and fragrance tells a story beyond words. Created by the students of the Master in Olfactory Experience Management for the Luxury Industry, in collaboration with the nose Alba Chiara De Vitis, this immersive installation invites you on a sensory journey through the raw materials of perfumery—both natural and synthetic. Divided into three evocative sections—Artisanal Chore, Artificial Spectrum, and The Encounter—the structure breaks away from the traditional olfactory pyramid to explore a new, binary language of scent. Eight unique notes, selected through a continuous dialogue between human perception and artificial intelligence, form the backbone of this experience. You’ll encounter saline, floral, leather, metallic, and abstract accords—each one a piece of a larger emotional landscape. Through glass bells and ceramic supports, you can explore both individual essences and the full fragrance, co-created with De Vitis. Raise the crystal bells and ceramic stones before you to enter a dimension where craftsmanship and technology merge, and scent becomes a portal between two worlds, natural and artificial.
6. Behind the Shoes, Master in Luxury Accessories Design & Management
A dedicated exhibition area will showcase a selection of the best projects from the second edition of Behind the Shoes, developed in collaboration with Leather & Luxury. Master in Luxury Accessories Design & Management students collaborated with twelve top leading companies in the footwear and accessories manufacturing sector, focusing on processes and techniques that explore innovative ways of using traditional craftsmanship. Innovation is at the heart of this experimental educational strategy, as the students are immediately immersed in the production processes of the shoe company, but with the precise goal of experimenting, innovating, and thinking new design and production strategies that the industry not always can explore in the production process, challenging the norm from within. Five students present therefore the very first prototypes of their research, bringing the audience inside the production process, implementing new 3D printing strategies and materic innovations.
Rafaella Lopez Kempin captures the delicate space between chaos and control, that razor-thin line where extremes meet and true balance is born. Leticia Cristina Corrêa transforms iconic Italian drinks into sculptural footwear with a twist of elegance. From the delicate float of an Aperol Spritz to the bold complexity of a Negroni, her design captures the essence of the aperitivo ritual through glossy textures, artisanal details, and statement heels that blend craftsmanship with imagination. Chiara Guastella explores the fluid sensuality of nature. Minimal yet bold, the collection celebrates the sinuous beauty of flowers, where sculptural heels seamlessly merge with the wearer’s silhouette. Glossy materials and refined simplicity replace excess, allowing exposed skin to enhance the interplay between structure and lightness. Karina Paraskevopoulos presents a bold tribute to femininity, blending boudoir opulence with fifties elegance. Rich textures and deep hues accentuate its sinuous, vintage-inspired curves, where sensuality meets sophistication. Inspired by nature’s untamed camouflage, Camila Barrionuevo explores textures shaped by time and materials that evoke eroded surfaces. Balancing the primitive and the modern, each piece captures evolution as a rebirth where change is not loss, but a new beginning.
7. Haptic Echoes: Traces of a New Artisanal Intelligence, Fashion Styling, Third Year
Fashion styling students present a new series of photoshoots and editorials where they emphasized both the extreme realism achieved with AI programs for post-production, and the conciseness of what is au naturel. Can you recognize the result of artificial intelligence and what has not been retouched at all?
The chosen medium to present the photoshoots is a video, edited by Emma Maggiani—alumna in Multimedia Arts from Istituto Marangoni Firenze. Through the editing, she connected the various identities in a single cohesive narrative: a graft, an entanglement of different aesthetics to create a chorus of voices that echoes the plurality at the center of the fashion show.
Every project in the Fashion Show is a culmination of educational strategies and research, therefore also the Fashion Styling area is proud also to present a wide research book to gives the guest the privilege to witness in the intricate cloud of references and concept maps, a silent guide on the connective tissue of the various photoshoots, artisanal intelligences.
8. Moving Text(s)ture(s), Multimedia Arts, Third Year
Multimedia Arts students, selected by an external jury, are presenting works produced with moving images, personal memories, bodies in motion, artificial intelligences and poetry to create visual narratives that can showcase the processes and sensibilities behind their research.
Asia Niero in Vecchio Cuore showcases an abandoned house that has become a narrator of itself. The project takes inspiration from object ontology, a philosophy that recognizes things as having an autonomous existence, capable of producing meaning. The video is a visual score: the sounds, recorded, collected, constructed, becomes a voice, a synesthetic text, the texture of a home.
Mary Margaret Mitchem’s work is a digital and poetic ballet based on a multilayered production process. Starting from recorded dance performances, the artist merges with AI-powered software these choreographies with her illustrations to create new silhouettes in movement. The results are moving images situated in between abstractions and figurative drawings in motion, while an original poem echoes her creative dialogue with AI, defined as A Foreign Mind.
The video Construct created by Lin Shiqi explores the possibility of non-human forms of life. Merging existing animals and natural landscapes with her imagination and artificial intelligence’s agency, she creates new digital lifeforms that now exist outside the artist’s control, offering us a new opportunity to rethink the concept of authorship.
THE RUNWAY
Now take your seat. The runway is starting. The presence of sound is now becoming sculptural: it fills the space with new sounds. Using both orchestral and electronic scores, Tutor Emiliano Zelada continues to translate the concept of the show into an aural experience now dedicated to the student’s collection. From an aerial point of view, the catwalk will wind its way through the installation platforms like a large digital snake (cfr. Nokia Snake Game). Let’s follow the flow!
TEXT(S)TURE(S) marks the culmination of a design journey that began in summer 2024 with a Summer Brief focused on artisanal intelligence, bringing together digital experimentation and manual savoir-faire. From this shared exploration, the collections took shape – created by third-year Fashion Design students – each offering a unique interpretation of the show’s central concept. The eight collections selected by a jury of industry experts and presented on the runway share a common vision of fashion as a language of identity and a tool for transformation. Each project is rooted in a personal exploration of cultural heritage and contemporary issues, weaving together innovation and tradition, intimacy and collectivity, form and meaning. This common atmosphere is underlined by the styling final touch: a natural grooming is designing a whole landscape punctuated by a few customized accessories.
THE RUNNING ORDER
SHREYA – The Florist
A new vision of masculinity rooted in vulnerability, emotion, and grace. Inspired by the contrast between traditional Indian garments and modern-day uniforms, the collection blends soft draping with tailored constructions to explore the poetic and sensitive potential of the contemporary man.
ELEONORA MACCARONE – Restanza
Inspired by the anthropological concept of restanza, the collection explores the duality of belonging and escape in depopulated Italian villages. Textural contrasts, voluminous shapes, and traditional details evoke the tension between memory and rebirth, mourning, and regeneration.
REGINA BRANCA – Metamorphosis
Inspired by the myth of Arethusa as told by Ovid, this menswear collection redefines masculinity through the lens of transformation. Crochet, wool, and silk portray a delicate, fluid, and vulnerable male body—opposing the macho archetype. Each garment resists convention: every silhouette is an act of liberation.
MARTINA TROYA MALO – Tocas
An homage to Ecuadorian craftsmanship through a reinterpretation of paja toquilla and Panama hats. Traditional materials are transformed into elegant, unexpected garments that merge contemporary design with ancestral culture. The collection celebrates the harmony between humanity and nature.
GIULIA LIN – Hyphen
A reflection on the delicate balance between life and work in today’s society. Loungewear and office attire are deconstructed and reassembled into hybrid forms, symbolizing the fusion of comfort and formality. Hyphen proposes a thoughtful aesthetic that challenges and redefines the rhythms of daily life.
MARTINA LA GATTA – Radici Future
A journey through the contradictions of Naples: tradition and innovation, past and future, folklore, and modernity. The collection combines artisanal techniques and new technologies to reinterpret Neapolitan culture in a contemporary light. Each look is a love letter to one’s roots and a revolutionary gesture toward tomorrow.
ELENA MARIA BRUGNARA – Inevitable, therefore alive
A deeply introspective collection that explores catharsis through the acceptance of pain. Born from reflections on guilt and childhood melancholy, it reveals a view of existence as a stagnant anomaly. The unconscious becomes the only possible escape in a journey with no happy ending—where pain is not avoided but embraced as awareness.
XINTONG LI – Modern Nomadic
A portrait of modern nomadism: individuals who live between the city and nature, without fixed affiliations, able to adapt anywhere. This fluid mobility is interpreted through versatile garments designed to traverse spaces, timeframes, and lifestyles—balancing digital life and a return to essentials.
TEXT(S)TURE(S) CREDITS
Istituto Marangoni Firenze
School Director: Lorenzo Tellini
Director of Education: Francesca Giulia Tavanti
Fashion Design Area
Programme Leader: Miguel García Abad
Course leader: Jacopo Battisti
Fashion Design 3: Regina Branca, Elena Maria Brugnara, Martina La Gatta, Xintong Li, Giulia Lin, Eleonora Maccarone, Shreya, Martina Troya Malo
Fashion Design 2: Monica Beduzzi, Stefano Ciucchi, Kangsan Lee, Sara Peng, Elena Vignolini.
Master in Fashion Design: Priscilla Noya, Una Kristjansdottir, Zuzanna Potok
Master in Art, Fashion and Textile Innovation: Zofia Krzyzanowska, Ndey Fatou Ceesay
Master in Accessories Design and Management: Leticia Cristina Correa, Karina Paraskevopoulos, Patricia Cristina Correa, Camilla Barrionuevo, Chiara Guastella
Fashion Styling Area
Programme Leader: Odile Orsi
Fashion Styling 3: Sergio Ghedin, Emma Innocenti, Margherita Materassi, Manuela Juan Millares, Rebecca Sclavo, Maria Eduarda Sodrè Diegues, Maria Elena Zecca
Video Editing: Emma Maggiani
Fashion Business & Fragrances Area
Programme Leader: Valentina Grigoletto
Tutor: Alba Chiara de Vitis
Master in Olfactory Experience Management for Luxury Industries: Nutchaya Ahnonkitpanit, Beatriz Boch Vezneyan, Maddalena Rizzo, Hanna Stanislawa Romanowska, Alessia Ugolin, Roberta Franklin Rocha Viana Rodrigues Barbos
Fashion Management: Manuela Apice, Carolina Baggiani, Gaia Biagi, Vittoria Giubbolini, Virginia Grisanti
Art Area
Programme Leader: Davide Daninos
Tutors: Stefano Concutelli, Roberto Fassone, Carolina Gestri, Giacomo Raffaelli, Enrico Visani, Emiliano Zelada
Multimedia Arts 3: Mary Margaret Mitchem, Asia Niero, Lin Shiqi
Arts Curating 3: Rebecca Ceccatelli, Valentina Leal Marroquin, Maria Isabella Trew Pichardo, Li Zecong
Master Curating Art and Fashion: Giulia Piceni
TEXT(S)TURE(S) External Jurors for Fashion Design:
Annagreta Panconesi (Creative Director of LuisaViaRoma), Luca Rizzi (Consulting Director of Pitti Immagine), Sara Sozzani Maino (Creative Director of Fondazione Sozzani), Marius Hordijk (Co-founder of TheCube Archive ), Beppe Angiolini (Founder of Sugar Store), Federica Caiazzo (Fashion Journalist ), Greta Peccia (Knitwear & Jersey Designer for Bally awarded Best Fashion Designer 2024 – Istituto Marangoni Firenze)
TEXT(S)TURE(S) External Jurors for Fashion Styling and Art Departments:
Gianluigi Recuperati (Curator and Art Critic), Marius Hordijk (Co-founder of TheCube Archive), Maria Abramenko (Curator and Founder of Nasty Magazine), Greta Langianni (Founder of Mulieris ), Stefano Giuri (Artist, Curator and Founder of Toast Project)
Communication
Elisa Losio • Head of Communication
Laura Bonadies • Group PR, Media Relations & Event Manager
Beatrice Scivetti • Social Media Specialist
Stefania Facciorusso • Communication Manager
Lucrezia Mangani • Digital, Social Media & Events Strategist Specialist
Production
Monogrid
Casting
Monogrid
Soundtrack
Emiliano Zelada
Invitation Embroidery
Bianca Hodselle
Hair & Make-up
Monacelli Italy
The House of Hair
Sponsors and Partnerships
Monacelli
The House of Hair by Fabio Colucci
Chargeurs PCC
Knitchen
JHA Porcelain
For Behind the Shoes
BC SERVIZI, BITOSSI, CDC, DAMI, DAVID LEATHER EXPRESSIONS, DOVER, ITALSFORM, LABAM, LAMPO, MONTI, NASTROTEX, ORESTE MARIANI, RINO MASTROTTO, SERENA CECCHINI, SIMONETTA ROSSI, TAURINI
Press Office
Carla Cordiano • Ploom Pr
