Portraits capresi is a series of interviews with protagonists of the island entrepreneurship. The life paths, projects, dreams and secrets of many makers of the Myth of Capri in the world.
When you talk with Michele Esposito, Capri fashion designer, you understand how the essence of beauty, art and creativity is present in the DNA of many island entrepreneurs.
“You have to travel the world – is convinced Michele – acquire professionalism, then return to Capri and with your vision, create models that are inspired by beauty, always with a touch of madness out of the globalized schemes”.
Yes, it’s true. Michele Esposito, art-director of Laboratorio – Capri, boutique factory a few steps from Via Camerelle is a nomadic visionary, who working between Tokyo, London and New York has sensed that the secret and the charm of island colors, blue, green and yellow caprese, you must perceive in the changing shades of rock and nature of Capri.
But it was Mare Moda of the 70s that gave the imprinting that has conditioned its future. “I was a child and the memories of that explosion of colors, the beauty of the models and the joyful madness of the public are an indelible memory in my memory”.
Michele grows up with his brother Augusto in the tailoring of father Gigino and mother Maria Luisa frequented by that imaginative humanity that populated the “Dolce Vita” caprese.
At the age of 18 he left the island to attend the European Institute for Design, Fashion and Visual Arts in Milan and then the faculty of sociology in Pavia. In these years of training, getting in touch with the dynamics of marketing of the big brands, he understands that only by returning to Capri can express his identity, explode his imagination. “My research on the image of Capri expressed in art, starts from afar, but day after day, I try to create a modern designer, innovative, out of the standardized cliches of capresity”.
All models and materials are created in the Laboratorio Capri and by artisans throughout Italy. Everything is strictly “Made in Italy”.
But it is the soul pop, transgressive of Michele his winning weapon.
“Too much harmony worries me, I always look for a discordant element in my creations, to make every model modern and personal” But as all visionaries has a dream – “I would like to recreate Mare Moda alla Certosa with all the artisans and young Capri designers and a school of tailoring and design for young people”.
The dreams of that child who saw the models and models at the Certosa are slowly becoming reality.
by Renato Esposito.
