Nanni Strada’s philosophy of Design

Nanni Strada is the voice of design that becomes fashion, or rather, of fashion seen and conceived as a design discipline, where clothes become architecture. An architecture perfectly calibrated to bodies that live, travel, dream and love.

For thirty years Nanni Strada has been the protagonist of a fashion concept that subverts the typical rules of haute couture and is far removed from the traditional way of conceiving clothes. Like all true experimenters, Nanni Strada combines a curiosity for research (into materials, shapes, techniques) with a healthy disrespect for established codes; her desire to reject predefined rules leads her to new horizons and new opportunities, with her ultimate goal being to avoid enveloping the human body in uncomfortable and stiff armors.

This is how she has created an extensive range of unique inventions: from the pleated “Matrix” fabrics to the flexible "Pli – Plà" clothes, which fold like fans to become minimal objects, from the compressible, wrinkled "Torchon" travel clothes imitated all around the world, to the "System for obtaining clothes with knitted tubular fabric and textile rectangles" that appear in the film Il Manto e la Pelle, screened at the Triennale di Milano in 1974 and awarded the Compasso d'Oro.

Her work draws colors and flavors from different points of the compass, globally bestowing emotions and becoming a reference model of critical and financial success for countries ranging from Portugal to Japan.

Text by Beppe Finessi from Abitare n. 415, March 2002