American Vintage opens in Florence !

 

A new monobrand store of American Vintage is opening its doors in Florence very soon. And  it’s absolutely exciting for the city of Renaissance !

The occasion of this store opening is a good opportunity to go back to the roots of American Vintage and learn a bit more about the brand history…

American vintage is a label of ready to wear for both women and men that takes its origins in Marseille, south of France. It was created in 2005 by Michaël Azoulay. Born in 1978 in Marseille, he made a formation in electricity and air conditioning. He changed job repeatedly, and very soon he understood that his way was in fashion, and especially in the marketing and commercial sides of it.

He was very eager to create his own line and in September 2001 he launched Ana Paola, a line of ready to wear for women specialized in stitching. The label gets some success, but needs obviously to evolve.

After several travels, Azoulay decided to modernize the brand and change the name for American Vintage, officially in february 2005.

 

Two years after, in 2007, he commercialized the men‘s line of ready to wear.

 

 

In an interview for fucking young, Michaël Azoulay explains : “We created a product that our customers can identify with. It speaks to them and brings out their unique personality. At American Vintage, clothing is not ostentatious and showy. Instead, it lets customers express their identity. The brand has brought a new concept to the market, with a unique approach and strong social values, which are expressed through the diversity of materials and colors.”

After 10 years, the brand widely expanded and is now well-recognize among the diversy world of fashion. The distribution in well developed in Europe, mainly in France. Yet it expands as well in countries like Israel, where there’re two monobrand stores, and also in Singapore or Hong Kong…

“We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.”  Michaël Azoulay

 

It’s super exciting to have a American Vintage store in Florence and it’s going to be fantastic  to stroll there enjoying their wonderful chromatic scheme…

 

Bill Viola, Electronic Renaissance

 

Palazzo Strozzi foundations organizes in collaborations with Bill Viola Studio an electronic Renaissance in Florence.

The exhibition takes place from 10^th of March until 23th of July 2017, and it’s been curated by Arturo Galansino and Kira Perov, who’s been his wife since 1979.

What a perfect location as Florence to organize a retrospective of Bill Viola; His Art was born here. Bill Viola is passionate about Renaissance and all the themes that come around it. The Vitruvian man is at the centre of his work and what he truly focuses on is all about humanity at its essence. Bill Viola represents primitive and archaic ideas through renewed motives and extremely modern ways. He is the founding father of this Art and proposed revolutionary ways to work and express himself at the time he begun is the 70’s.

He shows men and women transfigured by the forces of nature, as fire and water.

 

He is actually fascinated by water and sees it as an element of purification.

He loves Mannerist painters as he sees them as the greatest colourist, which inspires him a lot.

The exhibition in Palazzo Strozzi wisely showcases the Greeting (1995), work of Bill Viola, next to the Visitazione (1528) of Pontormo, this allows a more complete understanding of the work as well as a great pleasure to be able to admire those two master pieces looking at each others. It’s very interesting to know that Bill Viola has never seen the painting of Pontarno in reality when he created the Greeting, but he will see it only 18 years after. In this precise work, he uses slow motion as a central tool so as to showcase our internal timing, deconstructing our deepest internal dynamics.

Bill Viola wants to show things in front of which we just have to surrender. Indeed, for him the limited character of our lives is precisely what gives sense to it:

Immortality and eternity are two sides of a same coin.

What interests this peculiar artist is to slow down the frenetic rhythm we impose to ourselves so as to refocus on humanity, all this through very modern means that he adapts and revisits constantly. We get confused and merged with all those characters he shows us and his work becomes a real introspection among the unlimited possibilities of our inner selves.