ITS Happend... ITS over... ITS going to come back..
July 29, 2002
Pretty much like after the longest xmas eve ever, the organisation of ITS#ONE eventually faced its reason to exist… months and months developing plans and schemes on paper and quite suddenly everything started materialising… Thursday the 11th arrived and with it the real stars of our show: from dawn to dusk the 33 competitors passed through the threshold of a castle, entering what actually turned out to be a true fairy tale: their creation taking shape and volume under our eyes, layers of fabrics, accessories, spared shoes, all got labelled with their names and their exit codes, all got ordered on the stenders, all got filled with wishes, vows and hopes, each outfit starting to vibrate on an invisible frequency (invisible if you are not sensitive enough, of course) … heat from the outside and warmth from the inside … smiles like shining blades, eyes twinkling like shooting stars, excitement and expectation, embarrassment and pride, amusement and concern: ITS all for real?
…And then, when tiredness almost took over, the sea came in to balance everything: a little calm welcoming party on the beach, getting to know each other, you know, human beings first of all…
Friday the 12. the so called BORA showed up, a fierce wind blowing from North East, Siberian air becoming even more though passing through the Alps… not that common in the summer, but hey, ITS has got really little to share with what is common, banal and deja vù… well, try to imagine the effect of a very heavy wind on a very big tent… scary indeed… the ring of lights on the stage was rocking like a clipper on the North Sea, the tent was prey of a funny thought ” Am I made of the same fabric as a kite or not? FREEEEDOM”… but the structures resisted until all the elements paid respect to the ITS jury, tamed by their allure and charisma… and then it was time for the competitors to shake and rock, expressing their ideas, inspirations, style and skills, with their garments living thank to a wonderful casting. And then with the shadows of the night another party came to relax and connect everybody, more tuned than the day before, the ITS virus deeply contaminating our body cells.
Saturday saw the ITS tribe getting off their clothes as they were getting out their attitudes and conventional behaviour: marketing directors, students, journalists, pr, teachers sunbathing and swimming in a joyful mood (the quietness before the storm?) comparing different view of the fashion universe, each one with a peculiar cultural, geographical, social background (students and teachers from 21 countries, journalists from 17 countries), the melting pot was bubbling and boiling under a hot summer sun… and the bubbling continued and exploded at night:
THE FASHION SHOW
Lela, Vishvajeet, Ajit, Fabrizio, Silvia, Martine, Yuliati, Celine, Olga, Bernadette, Einav, Sophia, Annemieke, Assaf, Naomi, Zuzana, Goldi, Shahar, Mirit, Marino, Erik, Kioko, Kamilla, Natasha, Stefanie, Chu Po, Rahme, Jirawat, Gitte, Daniele, Sagiv… Their work, their styles, their emotions, their insight found eventually the way out, liberating a silent primal scream (and we shouted with them, oh God we did), the flashes and the spotlight, the full attention of the audience, a music designer mixing melodies and moods, beats and atmospheres, light effects underlining and emphasizing pleats of fabric, colours, asymmetric cuts, flashes of flesh… the show was pumping and the tent was vibrating, the collective heartbeat increased its pace, all rumbled to the end, the prize giving, some winners but, weird enough, not a single loser… the competition as an excuse to break through national borders, cultural barriers, status differences… in fact the most used sentence on Sunday, when all the survivals, pretty relaxed and exhausted, gathered together one more time for a goodbye lunch, has been ITS a FAMILY !!!
we told you from the beginning that this was our aim, unconditioned love and passion for fashion design and its talent on top of everything else, and we, you and us together made it happened.
ITS ONE love ONE heart
Over and out (for this year…)
