The Creative Method

A long interview, diluted through months of encounters with the architect Vincenzo Giubba, founder of one of the most important international fashion schools with headquarters in Florence, is transformed into a look at contemporary Italian history, filled with fashion, design, photography, graphics and the famous names who interpret this world, in the pages of the book by Nicolas Ballario, The Creative Method, Fashion, photography, design in the stories of the Accademia Italiana, published by Nardini Editore, in bookstores at the end of May.

With a preface by Francesco Merlo, this book, written in Italian and English, can be read as an album of creativity, rich with images that document anecdotes by great photographers like Olivero Toscani, industrialists from the design world, such as Guzzini, and many other testimonials of the time, from the 1980’s to the present, creatives, communicators, great journalists, but also Thai Buddhist monks and entrepreneurs from all over the world who believe in the revolutionary abilities of youth. From Florence to Rome, from Berlin to Bangkok, from Philadelphia to Milan, Vincenzo Giubba recounts his history (for 35 years one and the same as that of the Accademia Italiana), relying on the brilliant pen of the free-lance journalist Nicolas Ballario (Rai 2, Radio Radicale and Rolling Stone) who reports the feelings, the passions, the adventures in a world stamped as some as ephemeral but that is actually a strenuous, love-filled, daily creation.

From the mini-skirt in the 1960’s to the fall of the Berlin wall, from the creation of a fashion school inside a Thai convent to the long theory of projects, collaborations with industries, companies, cities and international brands, this book brings to light the creative process that has formed many designers in these decades. Because, as observed by the journalist of La Repubblica Francesco Merlo in the preface, the photographers, like the designers, cannot be simply instruments of the Marketplace.

They must, rather “deviate” from this market towards an ethic that pushes towards a free world led by ideals. “It is in the research” he writes “that the true responsibility of being a creator is manifested.” Contributions by: Oliviero Toscani, Domenico Guzzini, Gianni Quaranta, Sudhitham Chirathivat, Filippo Pernisco, Antonella Tundo, Franco Fiesoli, Ilenia Alesse, Walter Conti, Marco De Micheli.