Giulia Boccafogli: an insight into modern womanhood through the substance of leather
After a degree in architecture – says Giulia Boccafogli the authentic Made in Italy represented my true fashion education. After moving to San Francisco, places influence the story of Giulia just as much as her love for deconstructed, raw, a kind of beauty of the informal that is deeply rooted in her aesthetics. Fashion, according to Giulia can not exist without research and a personal vision, it is a kind of energy that remains on the pieces and that will make them shine.
GIULIA BOCCAFOGLI will be exhibiting at HOMI FASHION&JEWELS EXHIBITION
15-18 September 2023
A dedication to sustainability, craftsmanship, design and manufacturing with the ultimate accuracy. HOMI FASHION&JEWELS EXHIBITION explores a cultural challenge, is sustainability an utopian fantasy or a possibility?
You seem to intuitively identify the right spirit, zeitgeist, and vibes of your brand! You lived in San Francisco?
It was mainly out of love and sense that my current husband, then boyfriend, was about to start writing his doctoral thesis and so he moved there for a year. For visa reasons, I couldn't do it for a whole year and therefore I did three months and three months, in all, six months practically. It was a wonderful experience and I took some courses. I studied a little bit outside of what was my job, I was still an architect then. Metalworking courses and then I also started researching and it was then that I started using leather as an exclusive material.
How did you come to want to work only with leather?
Leather as a material was still a very free material because it was used a lot above all as a service material for other more common materials such as metals, stones and so I started from there. Part of my family worked in the world of handmade footwear so I already had some material to start with, I've been upcycling since 2011/2012.
Today the part of the Creative Director and CEO came together, did you have to invent new business rules as well?
Mine was a very naive approach, I knew how to design, I knew how to be an architect. The rules have changed since the pandemic. Not to interrupt the flow of continuity also of liquidity is essential for doing business and for small companies it is very difficult to be able to sustain themselves internally and yes I have given myself some rules.
One message, one leader! Do you think finding your own spirit and zeitgeist is important?
Especially with digital communication you have to be very in line with every single thing that you do, the audience is very sensitive.
I'm really lucky in this sense. I have many clients that love my world, they give me a lot of creative freedom.
Instinct and intuition have a lot to do with authenticity and integrity. Is that how you take your decisions?
Obviously I went through periods of great existential crisis like everyone else but the thing that has always saved me a little is the very idea of not being able to pretend to be something other than what I am. I am very happy with this choice, not to be ashamed of me being a little crazy, crazy in a good way, that is, light and ironic.
Your first studio?
It was in Bologna, via dell'inferno, open to the public with a shop. It is the area of the former Jewish ghetto and where there are still many artisan shops so I had my first small ghetto workshop there which I shared with a very dear friend of mine.
Do you love numbers?
I feel very little of an entrepreneur, I realize that I have limits. Then obviously it's not entirely like this, after so many years I'm still here. This is because I like to create. The entrepreneurial part weighs heavily on me, I don't like it either, this is the real problem. I like working with my hands and the relationship I have with my clients.
Contemporary art or classical art?
I'm probably more attached to the classics, also I was trained this way. But I love the informal Burri, so I made some pieces inspired by his blacks. I love Caravaggio and Magritte for what surrealism is. I am very little updated on contemporary art. I'm not, I don't consider myself very prepared. Despite the fact that I like it very much, so I am very happy to go to exhibitions and I like it very much. But I'm more attached to these names which are the first names that came to my mind.