The Amalfi coast is a terrace on infinity. So Fabrizio Caramagna wrote. And it is really like that when you meet Giuseppe Della Monica, a young designer from Vietri sul Mare, the first little town on the coast. Giuseppe is our second UFA finalist.
Giuseppe loves everything related to art and for this reason he directs his training
entirely to this. Giuseppe graduated with honors from IED, an exciting journey for the designer who had the opportunity to participate in various projects for the Maxxi in Rome, for La Repubblica and for the Sport Museum in Nice. His passion, study and commitment are rewarded by the school and he flies to Silicon Valley, mixing his all-Italian poetic vision with the modern and technological one of California. Defined as New Talent in 2016 with the collection “Il Pranzo della Domenica” in the print issue of Vogue Talents, Giuseppe waits for 2018 to create his own DELLAMONICA brand.
With this collection, Giuseppe wants to celebrate the sacred moment of
Sunday lunch, a moment in which we laugh, joke, eat and talk about each other in the family. For the designer, a dear theme, which is taken up again in the third collection named 25/04/1993, on the day of his parents' wedding anniversary. A great celebration of a large family from Southern Italy, in which puffed sleeves are harmoniously combined with flared skirts and woollen cloth capes.
Giuseppe is sensitive to nature, its land and its sea. For this reason, eco-sustainable ethics are fundamental for the designer, implementing a completely plastic - free work and using recycled and recyclable materials, the prints are water-based respecting the environment. Another essential element for Giuseppe is the tailoring technique he learned during his studies.
The designer's collections represent his soul, dictated by his origins. Great source of inspiration. As the first womenswear collection of the DELLAMONICA brand tells us, Vrenzola (s.f. deriving from the Neapolitan language), which stands for a flirtatious woman who loves to experiment with different looks and colors with a strong and true character. Classic lines of a suit played down by bright colors and bold details that emerge from the bras. It is the celebration of the local people, warm even in difficulties, aprons, blouses, skirts with embroidery, of details that have always been
part of his childhood, such as family albums, such as the colors of the ceramics, the scorching sun on the jagged cliffs and the saltiness on him. Moments that celebrate Il Bel Paese. Impossible to do without it.
Another theme is sewn into the fabrics of Giuseppe's collections, namely inclusiveness. This is reported in the SS20 IMMIGRANTS collection. The designer, through his art, shouts for equality, for a dignified life for all of us. We can all define ourselves as immigrants because we look for our place in the world and we don't stop until we find it. On this occasion, Giuseppe decides to compare today's migrants with Italian migrants from the early 1900s in search of a better future. He cleverly mixes lines from one era with materials from another. Classic garments are revisited in
a more cosmopolitan perspective with natural materials and different colors. He decides to create a surprising parallelism: in patchwork flags of countries at war or closed with the rainbow flag that symbolizes peace but also the rights of the LGBTQ + community. Enchantment.
Here where water and land meet, Giuseppe has given birth to a dream that does not seem true.
Interview & Article by
Vivian di Lorenzo
Images sourced from
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