COMPANY PROFILE
De Couture, a bags collection, aristocratic and creative was founded in 2005 by Massimo Mariotti; in 2006 was promptly awarded the winners’ crown at the “Who’s On Next” competition, conceived by Franca Sozzani, the Editor of Vogue Italia, to identify and promote new fashion talents. The competition has given rise to the most promising names of new Italian fashion . Since then, Massimo Mariotti has worked toward making the De Couture brand and collection ever more appreciated by top international boutiques. He is a true connaisseur, a fashion expert, who has also worked as a design director with important brands.
De/Couture is a radically different line of handbags, at once modern and classic, aiming toward the higher end of the market both in terms of taste and distribution. The collection is a sophisticated blend of bags, conceived and manufactured using artisanal techniques and the skillness of master saddlers, yet re-invented with boldness in view of the times and new trends. The materials fuse luxury and naturalness: vegetable treated lambskin, glazed natural leathers, tumbler-tanned calf . The lines unravel in dissonance between the soft and hard, giving way to multiples series. A packaging made with a fancy assemblage of two vintage foulards will enforce the unicity of each piece.
CONCEPT
It’s been an explicit, fascinating desire cherished for a long time which drove me to project this handbag and accessories collection, primarily designed to satisfy the need for a different product; something absolutely genuine in its origins, rooted on classic echoes, something modern without being detached or conceptual, marked by the accurate reworking of master saddlers’ craft culture, in which every single object is embellished by the expert touch and care for details.
The quest for different materials emphasizes this double but transversal aspect; the veritable soul of the saddler tradition, the leather, a vulnerable material unceasingly changing with age and seemingly absorbing its owner’s features, is dynamized and updated with the chain crochet. It’s a game of dissonance in which the dull, unrefined leather’s surface is lightened by the silver and golden glares of the chains, at sight or hidden, stratified with the leather itself.
All this eventually turn into essential objects which are meant to last, “nouveaux classics” revealing style and elegance; bags and accessories merging quality with fashion attitude, sophisticated elegance with innovative and unexpected influences, designed to dress a soft and fine femininity, a never flaunted beauty made of imperfect perfection.