JUNE 13 – OLD CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS | LONDON
Bonaveri is an Italian manufacturer of artistic mannequins and bust forms. The company was started in 1950 by Romano Bonaveri who, along with his wife Adele transferred his skill at handling paper and plaster into sculpting human forms and figures. Their combined talents have given rise to a family company that today, manufactures and dispatches thousands of mannequins to customers across the globe.
Bonaveri has been producing various male and female collections that are now staple elements of fashion presentation for numerous fashion brands, couturiers, museums and galleries. They have excelled, like many successful Italian brands, at retaining a strong stylistic DNA. In the mid 1990s Bonaveri bought the Swiss mannequin company Schläppi, which offered a complete archive of forms that in their own right had become representative of an era. The Schläppi Collection both past and present exhibits it’s own characteristics – fluidity, movement and emotion – elements that are retained and used in this presentation.
So how did Noble come to be? In 2014, Bonaveri created Aloof – a female Schläppi mannequin whose poses and forms are inspired by the photography of Cecil Beaton and other avant-garde artists from the 1950s. Her cool simplicity forms the basis of a new direction for Schläppi – one that retains the original ethos but shifts the paradigm to a more classic evolution.
What you see this evening is the male equivalent of Aloof. Noble is not a slave or servant to her but is an equal participant in the reformation of this iconic brand. His own genealogy is present in decades of maturing male aesthetic inspiration whilst at the same time an interpretation of forms, poses and collective interactions in a thoroughly contemporary way. Sculptor Marco Furlani, who was involved with the Aloof Collection, has worked in the Bonaveri atelier exploring forms for Noble that honour his female counterpart and provide it with it’s own strong sense of individuality.
The concept behind Noble is to travel with the changing face of fashion whilst retaining familiarity with the past. His form is natural, familiar and strong, his pose and mood is otherwise modern. Bonaveri has achieved an aesthetic that draws inspiration from the past whilst interpreting a future. Mannequins set a mood in fashion – they are no longer the invisible army for static dress presentation – they participate in the event, they contribute an emotive mood and combine to elevate the stage set.
The collaboration with award winning British menswear designer Lee Roach, whose refined minimalism combined with traditional elements echoes the sensibilities of the new Noble mannequin collection, for his presentation on the official calendar of London Collections Men offers an exciting platform of figure staging for the new collection. The site-specific installation is a collaboration between Lee Roach and artist Filippo Maria. The symmetrical composition of 17 Noble mannequins below the domed skylight are elevated on steel framed mirrored structures between singular light strobes, on the ground floor space of the former the art school.
The installation offers opportunity for viewers to interact more closely with the garments, the mannequins and other viewers. Yet at the same time, there is a strong injection of stature and aloofness that both Lee Roach, Filippo Maria and Noble have successfully conveyed in their collective assimilation.
Noble is available in 5 core poses and comes in mirror images for versatile groupings. He is available in plain standing, standing astride, walking and seated poses with various head and arm configurations. Customers are able to assimilate any number of situations by using twins or mirrors to achieve desired compositions.
We hope you have enjoyed the presentation and invite you to make contact with our team in Italy and our representative in London for more information. For further details of the collection and to arrange a viewing, please contact Andrew Carter at Blue Studio.
Photography: Charles Moriarty