Al fashion show, Pyramid of Excellence award

The 200 outfits designed and hand-sewn by the Accademia Italiana's graduating students were created with innovative materials in playful color combinations, inspired by the theme “Materiali di Moda” (Materials of Fashion). The students presented an award to the great 86-year-old designer Roberto Capucci, who returned to Florence, the city where he took his first steps in the fashion world in 1951. Along with the master designer, the Pyramid of Excellence was awarded to the historic wool mill Falerio Sarti, relaunched with precious scarves designed by Monica Sarti, to Alfonso Marra, CEO of the multinational Klopman International, and to 40-year-old Asian designer Tawn Chatchavalvong, an Accademia Italiana graduate who now heads a small ready-to-wear empire. “I am devoted to Florence,” commented the great couturier Roberto Capucci after the the show, “and I appreciate the great creativity of these young people. Their imagination is marvelous, and we hope that they maintain it, even as they create more wearable clothes as they mature. I detest the vulgarity that unfortunately is rampant in the fashion world,” he added. “Women should be celebrated with clothes that emphasize their figure, and not vice versa.” The year-end event was also satisfying for the graduates of design, graphic art and photography, who for the first time displayed their work in a separate exhibition at the Museo Bellini in Florence.