forte_forte first boutique in Milan by forte_forte

Description of project by forte_forte

Intimate, but not secretive. Private, in a way that invites to discover.

A spatial and emotional extension of the tactile, atmospheric and dreamy values that define the unique spirit of the brand. An environment with a delicate yet affirmative character, feminine in its levity full of strength, which combines memory and present, travel and introspection in a story made of materials and elements assembled following the thread of intuition.

Just as the forte_forte collections erase the distance between the garment and the wearer, so the boutique blurs the line between public and private, between the selling space and the narrative environment. It welcomes and surrounds, halfway between discovery and dream, transmitting the warmth of the human touch, always palpable in the treatments and finishes, in the quest for sublime imperfection. The project, curated by robert vattilana and giada forte, is a harmony that comes from avoiding pre–established schemes. Furniture and solutions mingle in a liquid whole that incorporates signs, traces of travels, echoes of shares memories. The tone of the expression is light, deep and sincere.

The spatial story, rarefied and suspended, unveils behind the full–length white curtain that wraps the frontal window and part of the walls. The protagonists are the materials, harmonized in a multisensorial opus that stimulates sight as well as touch, and in which the italian–ness of the hand–made becomes an eulogy to imperfection. At the center is travertine marble, expressive rather than monumental, used in bas-relief, in open or closed grain, in crust or engraved with stripes, for walls, furnishing and, cut into large slabs dotted with colored mosaic glass, for the floor. The opaque serenity of the marble is brightened by the brass that, like a sign drawn freehand in space, lightly defines the elements of the display, with their organic profiles, the perimeter of the mirrors, the portholes and the silhouette of the comfortable changing rooms looking like compartments of a train. The chandelier at the entrance is brass, too. The journey takes a sensual turn as it merges with light: the transparent impalpability of the curtains, behind which lightboxes create lantern effects, alternates with the voluptuous density of the velvet, quilted with found buttons gathered along journeys and lining the walls of the dressing rooms. Pebbles create a mineral lace  texture over the stairs. The dreamlike presence of the brass sculptural curtain on which the glass ampoules made by massimo lunardon capture the transience of thoughts and inspirations is mixed with the vegetal and domestic touch of the strelitzia plants that sprout from the travertine vase.

The architecture and the display of the products create a physical and metaphysical link between the space and the collections, letting the purity of the line and the poetic purity of the materials do all the talking. Private elements collected worldwide give the story a personal signature: a drawing of a woman by didier mahieu, a bitossi ceramic designed by aldo londi, a jar of glass test tubes bought in a market in los angeles, the plaster bust of a venus coming from a french foundry. Shells, corals and submarine elements underline the evanescent surreality of the atmosphere.