TO Sanremo 2022, in a few days, we will see two battles: a public, more or less bloody, between songs and singers, with winners and losers, another “private”, fought with unusual ammunition such as heels and sequins, by stylists who move, powerful and silent, in the backstage. They have never been so important, but after Achille Lauro’s performances in Gucci and Måneskin’s (Etro) nude rompers even those who managed alone, with a friend or a brother-in-law have changed their minds. Now everyone wants stylists.
The stylists behind the looks of Sanremo 2022
In America they are already masters of the image, they have the cover of Hollywood Reporter, they go in and out of ruthless rankings. Less with us, but change is in the air, thanks above all to the world of music. Someone, in the last Sanremo, will have seen the sparkling Dolce & Gabbana archive (2007-2008 season) into which she had slipped a very slim and red-haired Noemi. Someone will have noticed the monumental Valentino in taffeta and pleated tulle by Veronica Lucchesi (The List Representative): it took four people to bring him to the stage and one to convince the creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli.
Susanna Ausoni and Antonio Mancinelli, The art of styling
Thanks to Susanna Ausoni, our most famous stylist, that the craft was invented in the nineties, and momentarily left behind the scenes to sign with the journalist and fashion expert Antonio Mancinelli The art of styling (Vallardi), guide to a beloved and coveted job, but more difficult than you might think. «We need a great culture between cinema, music, fashion. You need psychology, because you are dealing with complex personalities “, says Mancinelli,” and you need to look beyond the borders, to names like Ibrahim Kamara, stylist born in Sierra Leone and transplanted to London, or like Volkova fight who, departed from Novosibirskhit Paris with the post Soviet style ».
Sanremo 2022, our Met Gala
Let’s take Sanremo, our Met Gala, the test bench: “It’s not just a matter of choosing a dress, but to visually tell a story, imagine two months before the show a project linked to the personality of the artist, to the song, to what he wants to communicate ”, explains Susanna Ausoni. “Nobody imagines how many tests, at least three, how many adjustments, how many contacts with stylists (not everyone is willing to commit to an unknown artist or almost), it’s a crazy, exciting race, a hellish period that ends only when the dress is hung up in the wardrobe again ».
How will Mahmood wear at Sanremo 2022?
Each look a story. Let’s take an example? «Mahmood, in Sanremo again this year. I take care of it, I interpret his references, his passions, how he grew up, the references to the East ”explains Ausoni. “He went on stage in a pleated black mohair shirt dress, an armor for that Riccardo Tisci, Burberry creative director, it is a symbol of inclusiveness, union, future. And he was comfortable with her, because she loves fashion, she doesn’t suffer from it. Francesca Michielin was a romantic-punk doll, and I chose Miu Miu for her. For Virginia Raffaele I emphasized the performance part: in the gag of the opera singer she “sank” into the red dress of Atelier Emé ».
Make the already seen original
We are still a long way from shocking looks like those thought for Lady Gaga (steak dress and garbage bags) by Nicola Formichettifamous for asking Prada for a pair of very high shoes on which it was impossible for her to walk, but Achille Lauro tries to surprise us again this year. Her stylist, Nicolò Cerioni known as Nick, claims to be inspired by Madonna, Beyoncé and Raffaella Carrà. He designed Orietta Berti’s pop distortion and Jovanotti’s image. In Sanremo 2022 she also dresses Gianni Morandi and Rector, who sings Chimica in a duet with the eclectic Ditonellapiaga (real name Margherita Carducci) dressed by Susanna Ausoni: she and Nick have worked together at MTV and now they meet again. The world of stylists is small.
Others stood out in the past edition: Simone Furlan, who dressed Madame in Dior iexpiring from artists such as Tomaso Binga (pseudonym of the feminist poet Bianca Menna) and Libera Mazzoleni, but also Annalisa, and Kolors and the Nuclear Tactical Penguins; Rebecca Baglini, who for Arisa bothered Marina Abramovi Ramona Tabita who deified Elodie in Atelier Versace, with bondage drapes on the back, an Oscar de la Renta silver mini dress and a voluminous cloud of red tulle by Giambattista Valli Haute Couture. Cerioni is the most daring with respect to the mandatory characteristics for a Sanremo look.
The most famous looks to show off
He argues: “Entertainment must amaze, for better or for worse, take the viewer to another universe, make him live an experience while he is on the sofa”. For everyone, the perfect stage performance of the Ariston is a risky mix between the ability to strike the collective imagination (Furlan mentions Anna Oxa’s thong, Loredana Bertè’s fake baby bump in 1986), respect for the artist and attention to the Rai Uno audience that can only be scandalized to a limited extent. So the embroidered Maneskin onesie had to be “retouched” last minute (you could see too much).
“Stylists must take all this into account by assembling in a new way clothes and accessories that already exist, making what has already been seen original”, Mancinelli emphasizes. “As? Drawing on youth worlds and subcultures: a certain way of tying a scarf, the shirt over the cashmere turtleneck, the sock with sandals, the voile tunic with punk combat boots, the Magnum PI alpha male shirt revisited for Mahmood. So stylists need stylists. Everyone, except Alessandro Michele, of Gucci, who mixes all kinds of suggestions, from Hollywood to the Greek soul, in the mix of past and present that characterizes postmodern culture.
In Sanremo 2022 everything is possible
Sanremo is one of the places where this circularity is expressed by teaching us that everything in the closet can have another life ». But music remains at the center Susanna Ausoni was the first, many years ago, to mix sequins and street for Carmen Consoli: a Blumarine skirt over a baseball jersey with the number on it bought in Thailand during a vacation. In Sanremo 2022 he takes care of Noemi, Mahmood, Elisa, Ditonellapiaga and the new entry Matteo Romano, 19 years old, cute face, “Graduated” from TikTok. Will they also be successful thanks to the look? He specifies: «If we talk more about the songs than about my work; if you talk about the songs and also about my work, I won. If we only talk about the image, I didn’t win.
If styling cannibalizes music, it’s not doing good service. ” Accept criticism but hate report cards (in reality, even those who proclaim indifference do not love them), which are now a national sport, “votes often awarded by people who have no idea of our work.” As those of Bennato are not “just songs”, these are not just clothes, they are aesthetic-narrative communications. But it is not mandatory to know this as we look for a new (or not so new, perhaps) rhythm. to ward off melancholy in the Covid era.
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