Two Italian designers, Gabriele Fiorucci Bucciarelli and Joshua Fenu bring together apparel and footwear creating fashion as artwork.
Story and Photography by Terry Check
Embracing his ultimate goal of creating fashions to enhance women’s beauty, Gabriele Fiorucci Bucciarelli designs for a woman to become more feminine, accentuating the female figure with an extreme use of materials and colors. For each collection the Roman-born designer works alone as the sole creator with a team of assistants, bringing to life the conceptual designs of each collection such as FW16, featured in the editorial. The brand which is labeled, “Made In Italy”, holds true to the words for all fabrics and materials with hand-made embroidery.
At the age of 5, Mr. Bucciarelli would sketch evening gowns that accentuated women’s beauty. Bringing ideas to sketches, and sketches to life became his passion. While studying both engineering and fashion at school, the talented 19 year old student was approached by the famous designer, Antonio Marras, to be one of his assistants. With no hesitation, he accepted the opportunity, and then created his fashion signature years later after working with some of the most famous “pret-a-porter”, designer labels.
In recent years, the handsome young designer admired the music icon, Celine Dion, and decided to draw several exclusive designs, accentuating her beauty and music artistry. She loved the sketches, and the sketches became dresses for her Paris performance. The fashion world adored Bucciarelli’s work which was followed by celebrities and stylists requesting his collection.
When asked about the influence of his parents, he said after thinking for a moment, “My mother has always been my fashion icon. I have always looked at her feminine sophisticated elegance, choosing everything in her wardrobe, forgetting nothing in detail. I am totally fond of her old pics in which I really see the true Italian fashion style of the 60s/70s/80s.” “And how about your father?”, I asked. “Dad was one of my first fans, despite it all. He was so scared about this “(fashion) world”, that it seemed so impossible to be reached. He always encouraged me and always gave me the strength not to give up,…but unfortunately he was gone just a few years ago, and he cannot see all of this. The true passion that every day accompanies my work is dedicated to my father.”
What are his plans going forward? Well, he currently markets his collection on-line (http://gabrielefioruccishop.com/), and in showrooms in Milan, Paris and Shanghai. The next market will be the USA starting in the fashion world of Los Angeles..
The brash, outrageous and amazing Italian designer, Joshua Fenu, was born an artist and honed his fashion skills at the Parsons School of Design in New York City, and then collaborated with his good friend and renowned designer, Zuhair Murad. Quickly celebrities like Snoop Dogg, Miranda Lambert, Katherine Jenkins, Laura Whitmore and too many to count wore the JF London brand, both footwear and handbags, to red carpet and gala events. When asked about his inspiration for the FW16 collection, Mr. Fenu added, “The inspiration comes first of all from icons of fashion and music; but also from travel, market research and reading books and on line, attending fairs, observing trends of the past and revisiting in modern key. The FW2016 is inspired by the fetish bondage, to Helmut Newton, but also includes our distinctive and iconic elements like piercings, flash, zip, union jack, star; symbols that we always bring back to our main philosophy pop punk chic 70s 80s and to the music as universal language.”
The most important aspect of a fashion look is the accessorizing which brings to life the entire fashion experience. Check the JF London brand at http://www.jflondon.net/it/.
To showcase these two amazing designers, the folks at Bill Lowe Gallery (http://www.lowegallery.com/) hosted a photo shoot bringing together fashion with contemporary art.
Masquerade Magazine wishes to thank the two amazing fashion designers, Bill Lowe Gallery (http://www.lowegallery.com/) for hosting the photo shoot bringing together fashion with contemporary art.
Credits:
Writer and Photographer: Terry Check
Fashion Designers: Gabriele Fiorucci Bucciarelli and Joshua Fenu
Model: Amy Wilder
Stylist: Meredith Kubel and Susana Zafar
Makeup Artist: Meredith Kubel
Hair Stylist: Susana Zafar
Retouch Artist: Ionut Bibire
Location: Bill Lowe Gallery
