Two Ethos 2.0

Milan and Seoul. Eight thousand eight hundred and eighty four are the kilometers that separate the two cities. Six students. A trip. An imaginary suitcase. What to put in? How to deal with the design? None of them had ever been to Korea. The first step was certainly to convey to them the importance of the project, the value of know-how.

The story about textile techniques is exciting. Amazement and disbelief in front of a fabric that proceeds of four cm every eight hours. We are increasingly aware of living in a fast-paced and technology-obsessed society. This has certainly led to the abandonment of some values on which we have sunk our roots, not just Italian. But it is equally true that there are more and more words coming from many parts of the cultural world, such as preserving, remembering, identifying. Every nation has a history that is not just about politics and economics but about people and ideas. The Two Ethos project was born to give visibility and enhancement to an ancient technique also linked to slowness and dedication and love for a fabric. Two cultures, apparently distant (Korea - Italy) have met to find a balance and a stimulus in order to create collections of clothes and accessories that can speak both to a western user but more generally to a person who lives the contemporary. Passion for a plot. Passion for fashion. Enhancement of high craftsmanship. As Bruce Chatwin wrote "The journey is diversion, distraction, fantasy, changes in fashion, food, love and landscape. We need it like the air we breathe." And we have therefore embarked on a journey from different points of view. The look of a twenty-yearold with an Italian identity and an "unknown" universe mingled, finding contact points or stimuli to start creating. Choose a shape, a color, a fabric to match. The first edition gave value to the uniqueness of the fabric (gold and mother-of-pearl threads) without intervening too much on the forms.

Two Ethos 2.0 has instead followed a more "commercial" way: trying to insert the precious fabric into the everyday to accustom the consumer to mix different DNAs. Matteo Crepaldi - for example - did not want to do a real research on the city and culture, did not want to see videos or photos that told the country. He simply used his imagination and tried to build a mythical, futuristic Seoul in his mind by designing clothes for its inhabitants. "Informal" clothes, comfortable, keeping a link with both the theme and the past: knitwear. Lidia Sartori, Accessories course, has worked on the need to have order and practicality in the continuous movements of her idea of a nomadic woman, always looking for a home, a balance: a multipurpose, multi-use briefcase. And then the art. Nam June Paik chosen by Veronica Castro. Lee Bul and Loris Cecchini for Elena Magagna. Manipulations of the fabric, materiality for contaminations between the West and the East. The obsessions of the body and its modifications are instead the starting points for Francesco Salvi to find similarities with the classic paper patterns. Basic elements for the creation of a garment has decided to deconstruct them, modify them, just like with a scalpel on the skin. Cecilia del Carmen Juarez Balta expresses herself through the intertwining of fabrics to explain a multifaceted Korea. Patchwork as rooms. Other worlds, other dimensions. Finally Gate of Arianna Guamaccia. He identified at the airport the connection between the two countries and all the labels, codes and coupons needed to embark and reach the destination. Graphics that become patterns for a comfortable and precious bag.

Giovanni Ottonello

IED Professor