Valentino Vintage  – Illustration

Group Project – IED Milano – Special Project

Academic year

2023

Fashion Design students from IED Milano illustrated different vintage Valentino gowns using a variety of formats, techniques and supports. 

As part of the Valentino Vintage project, IED Fashion Design students were challenged to envision three specific gowns donated by the Italian brand to IED Milano in their own creative world. This was exactly the brief that Gianni Cinti, personal design teacher at IED, and Olivia Spinelli, Fashion Director IED Milano, gave them. 

A total of 20 students expressed their own vision on those vintage pieces with a variety of formats, techniques and supports. “The most important thing before drawing is to observe”, said Gianni Cinti to the students. He proposed them to take a deep look at the garments, their textiles, colors, shapes, patterns… and from his specific observation students were able to understand, imagine, decontextualize and interpret them through illustrations.

The results are very different proposals of how students interpreted the historic designs of the brand in a new way, understanding the vision of the couturier but also finding their expressive and illustrative techniques. 

Mixing traditional and digital illustration, students added their semantic, technique and philosophical elements. “I believe that traditional and digital illustrations are not separate entities. Digital manages to enhance what can only be done by hand: in short, I believe it is a very valid and now essential tool”, explains Cinti.

“We are witnessing a great return of illustration in fashion precisely because it manages to provide different and alternative ideas to those of photography or video. The illustration has the great power of being a vehicle of a very powerful message: even a single pencil mark can sometimes contain a world” concludes.

Students: 

Alessandra Brivio, Aurora Perinelli, Benedetta Bilato, Davide Casadei, Davide Taronna, Emma Baroni, Flavio Fregonese, Gaia Ceglie, Giada Bignami, Giada Cappello, Giovanni Sasso, Lex Gallo, Linda Tamiozzo, Lodovica Broggi, Lux Iris, Marianna Cannataro, Matilde Fanton, Mattia Giardinelli, Michela Cipriani, Riccardo Pavanini and Sofia Rota.

Teacher: Gianni Cinti

Tutor: Gaia Ceglie

Coordination: Olivia Spinelli