24 Oct Harmony Collection

Harmony Collection is a sustainable fashion collection, created partly digitally and partly physically, using old clothes and waste materials.

The project aim is to reconnect us all with nature and the world at its beginnings when everything was in equilibrium and humans and nature were perfectly communicating with each other.

‘No one of you can fail to know what neglect of art has done to this great treasure of mankind: the earth which was beautiful before man lived on it, which for many ages grew in beauty as men grew in numbers and power, is now growing uglier day by day…’

Morris, W. (1880) Hopes and fears for art: the prospects of architecture in civilisation

Blooming Life – Work in progress

‘I want the democracy of the arts established: I want everyone to think for himself about them, and not to take things for granted from hearsay; every man to do what he thinks right, not in anarchical fashion, but feeling that he is responsible to his fellows for what he feels, thinks, and has determined.’

Morris, W. Words & Wisdom

Blooming Life – Real-life piece

Harmony Collection will make us feel in harmony with everything around us through 5 pieces of clothes, that take inspiration to the 4 Elements of Nature: earth, water, air, fire plus aether (the fifth element introduced later by Aristotle). The strength of this project is that every piece has been created with what’s available: waste fabric, packaging and other recyclable material. Every artwork naturally came from mixing initial ideas with Ilaria’s flow of creativity.

To create the digital pieces, Ilaria scanned some waste materials – that she had previously collected – and then with the images obtained, cutting and assembling some pieces, she created the clothing.

For the real-life piece of the collection, the artist took inspiration from the aether, the fifth Element of Nature introduced by Artistotle. The clothing is completely handmade with waste materials.

Below you can see the process from the start to completion.

In the creation of this project, the artist has been inspired by two important characters in the history of design.

The first one is William Morris and his criticism of the modern, industrialised world and his declaration of the necessity of reconnection between people and nature using design as a vehicle.

And the second one is Giorgio Armani, with his letter to the Women’s Wear Daily, which expresses his disappointment to the current fast fashion system and his desire for a fashion out of time that brings back the balance of life.

Harmony Collection has been created for a new exhibition entitled William Morris: Wallpaper Man that opened the 22nd of October 2020 at the William Morris Society in London.

Ilaria hopes with these designs to inspire fashion brands and people to create clothing from recycled and waste materials.

If you are interested in purchasing the prints click below