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Sons of Florence: a dialogue between Fabrizio Moretti and Massimiliano Giornetti

Art dealer and publisher of Conceptual Fine Arts Fabrizio Moretti meets Massimiliano Giornetti, creative director of Salvatore Ferragamo. Both grown up in Tuscany and based in Florence, both collectors and globetrotters, they share the same passion for visual beauty and that unique pleasure it can give to our mind*.

 

Fabrizio Moretti: As a fashion designer, and an art lover too, which similarities do you find between art and fashion?

 

Massimiliano Giornetti: I think that an appropriate definition for fashion is the one that puts it among the so called “arts décoratifs”.

 

FM: I agree with you, nevertheless your work requires a significant amount of creativity, and from this point of view it is not that different from art.

 

MG: It does, but you know what? We have deadlines and we definitely work through commercial boundaries. I don’t think art should have such, and that’s why I don’t believe in those artists who produce on a predictable schedule. Take Woody Allen for example: I used to like him, but I don’t anymore now that he is releasing a new movie each Christmas, that’s a nonsense. I have to release a collection every six month because we have shops to fill and a production chain, and a business to run. That’s why I don’t consider myself an artist.

 

FM: Moreover, you are fortunate enough to be a collector.

 

MG: I don’t define myself as one. I buy art without a plan and I don’t follow a certain path, I only buy for the beauty’s sake, thus I get completely random things that I like.

 

FM: That could be a good approach. A New York-based friend of mine did the same by buying the works of young artists that were also friends of him, and finally found himself having a discreet valuable collection.

 

MG: Do you consider art is a form of investment?

 

FM: I absolutely don’t. I think people who can afford it should buy what they like, only driven by the pleasure of it. If some people call me just because they have some money to allocate, I suggest they would call a bank. Speculation, let me say, should be left to us dealers. But even as a dealer I tend to buy what I feel connected with and I enjoy the time I have with these works around.

 

MG: So what can be found in your gallery does reflect your own taste?

 

FM: Well, it’s something you can’t help. When walking through an art fair I can recognize my colleagues’ booths, without even seeing the name on it. A good dealer informs his offer. It’s a totally different matter when you are a curator for a museum, in that case you should forget your taste and buy in a neutral, objective way. In all the other cases, art should be your companion.

 

MG: As you say, for me art is a companion, but also it is a mark of my history. It keeps the record of my taste evolving through years, moreover it’s an exercise through which I define my aesthetic. At the beginning I would collect either a carpet or a period furniture, which I think is the heritage in terms of taste of my bourgeois family.

 

FM: I think we come from a similar surrounding. My involvement with art probably comes from the fact that my father was a dealer himself so I grew up surrounded by pieces of art. He was the perfect example of the self-made man: a farmer who decided to revolve his destiny. He opened a gallery and found his place in the art world. Unfortunately for him I had other ambitions as a young boy, I wanted to become a professional horse rider, so he closed the gallery. But by the time I started the university, I was hanging around with some of my father’s friends that were researcher for antique dealers. I think I met through them the most jerk but also the most fascinating side of this job, learning how to survive in a world of commerce that is full of traps and not always clear. I would say that has been a useful training for the years ahead, but I also realized that what really held my interest were certain gold leaf paintings from the XIII and XIV century, the same that my father kept in his private stock, and that, since then, I’ve been looking for.

 

MG: “Classic” have been  blamed by the world of fashion for years, as for most fashion people, was  synonymous for ‘static’. But I do understand there is a solution of continuity between a language and the other, let’s say the academic approach and the avant-guard. In this regard, I always like to recall the Picasso exhibition I saw a few years ago at the Royal Academy focused on his early work.

 

FM: Salvatore Ferragamo, the brand you are the creative director of, has been showing a serious commitment with old masters lately. I am thinking about the sponsorship of the Saint Anne’s exhibition at the Louvre, as well as the donation received by the Uffizi.

 

MG: Since Salvatore Ferragamo, the founder himself, chose Florence once back from the USA as the place where to settle, this city plays a key role in the brand identity narrative. Our bags don’t only carry the logo ‘made in Italy’, but we remark they are ‘made in Florence’. The expertise and know-how developed in this district add dimension to what Salvatore Ferragamo means to the world. This is the reason why many collateral projects are focused on the promotion and development of this area, and of what is related to it, as Leonardo Da Vinci obviously is. The promotion of Saint Anne’s exhibition at the Louvre was a desire of Mrs Ferragamo when she turned 90 years old.

 

FM: It’s a relief to hear that the new patronage resides among private companies, at least, when the government keeps doing wrong for our cultural heritage. We have amazing masterpieces that no one goes to visit, while we are engaging in pointless discussions like the one around Bronzi di Riace. That’s the ridicule situation that makes other countries laugh at us. Why should I wait in a queue for hours to access the Uffizi, while if I want to go to the National Gallery in London I just show up and get in? If someone has the means, then he should invest in art in our country, and not for the love of art, but for the love of the country itself.

 

*An Italian version of this dialogue was published also on Flair magazine (Mondadori).

 

December 5, 2014