THE "WUNDERKAMMER" OF LEITMOTIV

The Leitmotiv brand has origin thanks to the artistic inspiration increased by the Columbian Juan Caro’s gothic influences and the Milanese Fabio Sasso’s baroque.

The creative twosome, tending to the surreal, visionary and fabulous, present the first collection in 2007, in the evocative atmosphere of their garden-house on the Bologna hills.

The inspiration comes from the Trittico delle Delizie (Triptych of the Delights) of Hieronymus Bosh, Flemish painter of the XVI century, where the human beings are in symbiosis with the flora and fauna.

On each fabric of the collection there is a story of images, referring to fabulous atmospheres mixing human and animal world, generating that typical visionary richness of the Leitmotiv style.

Expression of the combination of art and fashion, Juan and Fabio’s work is recognized in 2008 at the Fashion Incubator offering to the brand a great visibility and a particular attention by the protagonists of the National and International world scene.

This prize is followed by a fashion parade in Milan at the Milano Moda Donna and another one during the Tokyo’s fashion week with the P/E 2009 collection having the theme “Life with Butterfly”.

The A/I 2010-2011 collection is on the contrary inspired by a typical phenomenon of the VI century, continued in the VII century enriched with Baroque grandeurs, called “Wunderkammer”, from the German “Chamber of the Wonders”, a kind of space from which the concept of museum was then developed, it was constituted by walls covered with shelves, wardrobes, small cabinets and windows where the collectors used to keep unusual objects, which resulted to be extraordinary due to their originality and aesthetic and intrinsic properties.

The A/I 2010-2011 Leitmotiv collections patterns refashion, in Baroque contexts, images coming from the previous collections archives, readable from the top down towards the bottom side or the other way round, in an absolutely free way, according to the brand’s peculiar “assembly poetics”.

An assembly of visions, stories, surreal journeys, set in a skeleton made of Baroque style frames with reference to a Wunderkammer’s structure, as it happens vaguely in the visual effect on the wool tight dresses or tights, in that kind of symbolist and decadent painting of Gustav Klimt.

The accessories of the same collection do not miss the same decoration patterns, as the “Doctor Bag” made precious by the snail-shaped jewel jack. The gorget scarves are the novelty of this collection, combined with pendants containing old colourful doilies enriched with citations of the past, stressing that kind of taste for the relic that since the beginning characterizes the Leitmotiv of the twosome.

A twosome that succeeded in making dreams and short circuits of an artistic and experimental unconsciousness portable.

Stefania Zizzi