Ran is a korean fashion designer. She lives in Milan, where she studied at the Istituto Marangoni. She is known as Irene Hong, the label with which she sells her designs. Ran owns a refined boutique in the heart of…

French label of ready-to-wear fashion. It relied upon its own chain of stores. It was founded in 1853 as a textiles manufacturer. It was founded by Eugène Rodier who invented the Kasha, made in wool from Kashmir, and revolutionized knitwear…

Robert (1925). American artist. A leading member of the New Dada and Pop Art movements, he featured in his work the influence of Dadaist collage and, in particular, the style of inserting actual objects into artworks. In 1974 he created…

This Italian term technically describes a frock coat. It has shifted in meaning like few other terms in the history of apparel. It is derived from the English term, “riding-coat,” and was present in Italian sartorial terms in the mid-nineteenth…

Bettina (1952). French photographer. After ending her career as a model, she opened with partners a gallery for contemporary art in Paris and, in 1978, she entered the field of photography, doing pictures for album covers, celebrity portraits, movie posters,…

Youth protest movement that exploded, at the beginning of the 1980s, out of the run-down inner-city areas of the largest American metropolises. It has influenced the spheres of music (rap or hip-hop), painting (graffiti), and social lifestyle in general, with…

Colette (1912-1996). Italian writer, painter, and journalist. Anyone who was a child in the 1940s will remember the book of Susanna, with which she debuted as a children’s illustrator. The most faithful readers of the women’s weekly Grazia will associate…

Franco (1937). Italian photographer. After an extensive array of highly eclectic studies (classical high school, Italian Naval Academy, department of political science), he began to do fashion photography, using his wife, a famous fashion model, as his subject. In the…

Derek (1950). British photographer. Born in London. He studied graphics and advertising design at the Earling School of Art, together with the future pop star Freddie Mercury. He graduated in 1971, and worked for ten years in the field of…

A plant fiber used in weaving, obtained from plants of the Urticaceae family, which grow in China and in Japan.