SAVOY FAIRE COLLABORATION WITH BORBONESE
During the spring semester of 2020 a collaborative project between Parsons Paris BFA Fashion Design Juniors and the Historical Italian maison Borbonese was launched. The collaboration aimed at exploring fashion heritage and local crafts for a more sustainable future. The project was inspired by the relationship between the Bourbon rulers of Turin, when it was the ancient capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia under the House of Savoy, and the people of Sardinia. The centuries-old rituals and textile crafts of the Sardinians served as a metaphor for the resilience of vernacular savoir-faire — or know-how — in today’s industrialized world. Students worked simultaneously with the iconic OP print of Borbonese and traditional hand woven Sardinian tapestry. They discovered the rare craftsmanship of the island’s villagers, engaging in an artistic dialogue with a Mediterranean insular culture and producing woven patterns in collaboration with Su Trobasciu, a female-run artisan cooperative in the Sardinian village of Mogoro.
Savoy Faire involved 14 international Fashion Design BFA Junior students and 14 Strategic Design and Management BBA Junior students from Parsons Paris and Parsons School of Design in New York. For this very first experience in the field of accessory design, fashion design students focused on a new bag concept and capsule collection. The pandemic that hit Europe in the middle of the semester disrupted the development phase of their projects, obliging them to create pre-prototypes from home, using paper, cardboard or baked flour to translate their ideas. Despite this unprecedented situation, the three finalists of the Savoy Faire contest saw their prototypes produced in Italy in summer 2020 by Borbonese and Su Trobasciu artisans. In 2021, the winning project will be produced in a limited edition to be commercialized by Borbonese.
One of Italy’s longest standing fashion houses, Borbonese is renowned for its bird’s eye print, called OP. As a brand specialized in bags, jewelry and accessories, Borbonese quickly became one of the leading names in Italian luxury with a broad range of products. The historical Italian Maison founded in Turin in 1910, renowned for its skillful combination of expert craftsmanship, sophisticated manufacturing techniques and fine materials,
aims to achieve sustainable development in its strategic repositioning and growth. Officina Borbonese is a laboratory of new concepts and projects, a widespread space of creativity that encourages the youngest generation of designers to reinterpret the brand’s heritage and products.