“I would love to have a 25hours-day! I’m an early riser and I often work even 10 hours with only a quick break for lunch. This is a very hard job if you put your soul into it: I carefully study every detail and I follow each step of production. It takes a lot of time. Anyway, the need to create makes me feel never tired and gives me the same willingness to improve.”
story by Charles Beckwith
photos by Boris Marberg
My grandmother always had an interesting taste in clothing. She was a woman who wore color, who wore excitement. The last few years she was on oxygen for emphysema, always a little “out of it” since that started, and recently chemotherapy for stage 4 lung cancer. So, she slowed down, and wasn’t really the whole person I remember from my childhood. It has been a while since I felt like when I was talking with her, I was really talking with her.
So, a few months ago, when I saw a video clip of the last resort collection from Blumarine, it was a deeply personal jolt I felt. I saw a collection I knew my grandmother would have wanted to wear. Every piece that was coming down that runway was something she would have been crazy for. So, when I was in Milan in December, I made it a point to visit their showroom. There is an energy to these collections that you rarely see, where style and life meet and dance.
I’ve had this interview for a few weeks now and had not posted it because my grandmother was near the end, and the ideas in my head about her spirit and the Blumarine label are linked. She passed away two weeks ago, and I finally feel a release, because I know she is free to be herself again.
Here finally, is my interview with the famed Italian designer, Mrs. Anna Molinari, and select images from her most recent collection. Continue reading “Interview with Anna Molinari, legendary designer of Blumarine”
