Gallia & Peter, Hat Couture is the most famous milliner’s shop in Milan, essentially a “fashion house” specialized in hats and headdresses.

A magical place where everything is made by hand, every detail is carefully crafted. In the adjoining workshop one can observe the milliners at work amongst colourful veils, the finest straws, flowers of silk and a thousand other materials.

I had the pleasure of meeting the proprietor Laura and her collaborator Mako just before the onset of the pandemic and the disruption of life as we knew it.
However, during the short time we shared together I had the opportunity of admiring and appreciating their extraordinary manual skills.
Laura Marelli has inherited her passion and artisanal creativity from the preceding generations in her family and has brought continuous innovation to her art.
In her atelier we can still find quality, art, craftsmanship, faithful as she is to the cornerstones of her ancestors.
The models and patterns are entirely created by hand with unique materials and then personalized for each woman. A truly special place.

I met the artist Giorgio Radice during the making of the exhibition “Chambers of the Goddess” organized and curated by Anna Bocchi, Sarah Mancino and Serena Spinelli of Art & the City, Milan.

His art studio was like a whole kingdom bursting with tools of the trade, traces of colour scattered here and there and an abundance of large works on paper rolled up and carefully archived on their shelves. Anna, Sarah, Serena, and I spent many hours observing and thinking about how to create a dialogue between Giorgio’s works. Each painting was unravelled on the floor and then hung on the great wall at the back of the room. Each time we marvelled at a new discovery or a new intuition: primordial landscapes and a multitude of antique Goddesses appeared.
Despite the artist’s fine and slender appearance, he possesses a tremendous physical and creative vitality. A kind, discreet and reserved man who unfolds all his knowledge and inner power in the tale of an auroral world, where imposing megaliths merge with the first industrial towers under the gaze of the Goddess Eurinome. The free flowing and ethereal drawings against a few well- chosen full colours express the physicality of art making and the intellectual soul of the artist alike.
His works found their natural habitat within the elegant and unconventional setting of the Hotel Straf in the heart of Milan’s city centre. Hotel Straf is a location where Design and artistic expression have always been welcome. On this occasion the Main Hall, Reception Area, Conference Room, and Straf Restaurant formed an evocative stage for the enjoyment of Giorgio Radice’s visionary works.
The Goddesses of Giorgio Radice also inhabited the bedrooms of the hotel where visitors participated in a treasure hunt amongst corridors and numbered doors.

For Giorgio Radice’s exhibition I created a site-specific video which was filmed in his studio and was representative of the artist and his work. I also curated the exhibition catalogue’s graphic layout and visuals and carried out a photo shoot during the beautiful vernissage at Hotel Straf.