Photography Marcello Junior Dino
Creative direction Caterina Egidi
Interview by Anna Frattini
Production Rex Industries
Model Nabila Leunig @ Img Model
Make-up Mary Cesardi @ Blend Management
Hair Erisson Musella @ Blend Management
Casting WeDoCasting
Retouch Alberto Maro
Fashion Assistant Flaminia Tonnicchi
Photographer’s assistant Dario Kyr
Editor-in-chief Valentina Ilardi
Heritage is a GREY project that gives voice to the far-sighted fashion generation of designers and emerging brands that are establishing themselves in the contemporary scene.
For the #03 edition of Heritage we are proudly presenting ANDREĀDAMO. Andrea Adamo is the Italian designer who courageously created his own brand in 2020 stirring up the fashion system with his vision. Society, body, color and gender are the elements embedded in his wo(man) collections that leave room for a new fashion era focused on openness and pride. The ribbed knitwear and skin tones palette are, in fact, part of the signature style of ANDREĀDAMO.
Andrea, you worked in the fashion industry for a long time. Now that you have your own successful brand – tell us: how did you find your way into fashion?
It was a real revelation when during the first lockdown I had the idea of founding a brand in my name that was the expression of what I felt and my aesthetic. It wasn’t the first time that this idea came to my mind. However, only in that particular moment I was convinced that it was time to jump into this adventure. I thought the key to getting through that hard time was to start with my story. All over the world, during lockdown, the Black Live Matters movement gained more visibility: a phenomenon that deeply struck me and led me to reflect on how inclusiveness is an important issue for each of us. I think that a designer has the ethical duty to bring to the surface social issues through his creativity.
The combination of these circumstances and the intuition of how my ethical and aesthetic vision could respond and interpret what was happening in the present convinced me that it was time to get involved and launch, with a bit of unawareness and courage, in this adventure.
From the beginning of ANDREĀDAMO to your last show, ribbed knitwear is one of the key components of your own brand. What do you think is so fascinating about it?
The central element of my aesthetic is nudity as truth. Sometimes being naked scares or intimidates. In the ANDREĀDAMO aesthetics, on the other hand, nudity is essential as is the positive approach to one’s own body and to the perception of oneself. The seamless and its use in the world of knitwear have immediately proved to be the perfect techniques to accommodate my desire to blend fabric and body. Knitwear takes shape and life when it embraces shapes, supports, and enhances them. My garments play with wanting to show the skin and wanting to become a second skin. In the same way from the beginning of my project, I decided that my nude color palette would have no names but codes. The flesh color, the skin color, and the nude color, which changes from person to person. My starting idea is a universal nude. For example, what other brands call “brown chocolate” for me is the color “Nude 03”. It is central to me that everyone feels proud of their body and can freely express their shapes and the color of their skin.
You decided to create your own brand during the first lockdown, in early 2020. What inspired you to become an independent designer?
During lockdown, I had a lot of time to think about myself and I came to the conclusion that I truly wanted to work on a project of my own that fully represented me, transmitting my aesthetic vision. I wanted to turn that incredibly challenging time into an opportunity to rethink myself, my story, and my identity. It all started with the image of a woman leaving the house with her head held high, in broad daylight, fully dressed, but looking naked. From this concept – or provocation – I started to design a dress, made thanks to the seamless technique that does not require cuts or seams. The eye can’t really perceive where the fabric ends and where the skin begins. I like the idea of living nudity as truth, as an element of externalization of one’s identity without shame or prejudice.
Are you looking into expanding the concept of genderless in your future collections?
I think that the concept of continuity between genders is an individual factor, an expression of one’s own identity. The collections I design have neither a masculine nor a feminine connotation, I have always defined my collections wo(man), going beyond the concept of gender. I’m inspired by the people in my everyday life, my friends, the people I meet on the street, real people. To those who wear my clothes, I wish for them to feel proud to be themselves. Everyone can wear the garments I design to feel what they want to be: shame is the daughter of labels, a state of mind that is imposed on us by society, something I hate since I was a child. The point is not so much to study a collection that wants to be genderless but to design garments that make us feel good and closer to the idea we imagine of ourselves.
Who are the designers that influenced and encouraged you the most during your career?
I’m not exaggerating when I say I’m the biggest fan of Yves Saint Laurent. A man who gave power to women, who became the spokesman of a cultural movement and of sexual revolution, which pushed people to assert themselves regardless of physicality or skin color. I think that the empowerment of the individual does not depend on how thin or heterosexual you are, but on the ability to respect others. It is an idea that it is right to carry on until it is granted. Also, I really admire the work of Demna Gvasalia for Balenciaga because behind the clothes he always poses an unequivocal social message. I believe that fashion should be a mirror of society, an interpretation of our dreams, an expression of our fears, a message of rebellion, if necessary. I am convinced that it is a fundamental part of the professional ethics of a designer to keep an eye on the society that surrounds us and respond to the demands that arise from it.
Experimenting with fabrics and using standard silhouettes has brought you a long way in the fashion industry. What is your vision for the long term?
I don’t want to impose a long-term vision, I prefer to continue to evolve my aesthetic message from collection to collection, responding to the need of constantly expressing my creativity and interpreting from time to time what instinct tells me. Surely the body will always be the focal point in my collections, bonded with the pride of its forms. Right from the start this message was welcomed by those who have become loyal customers of the brand and by those who follow the developments of my work. It is precisely the concept of second skin that has always inspired me, and that will always remain the fundamental element of ANDREĀDAMO DNA, as a synonym of personal pride both for the color of your skin and in terms of body positivity.
