A talk with Giovanni Bonotto, Andrea Rosso and Mauro Simionato
Editorial
Edition 98
21.10.2020
Presented by Giorgia Cantarini x Sustainable Style
Sustainability: a multifaced conversation, that spans from production choices to ethical and social practises. The protagonist of the talk is Giovanni Bonotto, Creative Director of the BONOTTO textile company. The history of this Made in Italy finest company dates back to 1912 when it used to produce straw hats - they created his famous anama for the writer Ernest Hemingway - and later became one of the great creative textile workshops, part of the Ermenegildo Zegna group from 2016. The company’s approach is innovative thanks to a stimulating cultural exchange that the Bonotto’s owners put in place with the most important artists of the contemporary era, from the Fluxus movement ones to Yoko Ono, transforming Bonotto into a sort of artist’s residency. Today, more than two hundred masters of art, as Giovanni Bonotto calls his artisans, are dedicated to the design of fabrics that are chosen by the most important fashion houses around the world, thanks to the attention in the manufacturing and the unstoppable desire to research and experiment, with a new line of work complitely devoted to sustainable fabrics. Giovanni Bonotto's commitment was recognized in 2018, thanks to the creation of a tapestry made in recycled polyester fabric for the Green Carpet Awards for which he was awarded a special prize. In dialogue with two creatives who have chosen the practice of upcycling for their collections, Andrea Rosso for Myar on the one hand, and Mauro Simionato for Vitelli on the other, Giovanni explains the achievements and the challenges of what it means to choose sustainability. Starting from the values of his company also known as the “Slow Factory”. At Bonotto, all the processes are entrusted to mechanical, non-electronic mechanics, without automatic mechanisms. Old looms discarded and in disuse, precisely because they are "slow". The quality of a fabric ryhmes with the time it takes to produce it. In a four-voice dialogue with Giorgia Cantarini, fashion journalist and curator of Sustainable Style, they discuss how to change the public's perception of sustainability, where the future of fashion lies, what the meaning of true luxury, the circular economy, the value of the “well made, excellent style” . A new attitude that marries responsible prodution and ethical conditions. When a fabric is born from a plastic bottle, beauty is born from waste.

Video available only in Italian