Fashion in Rome
Monday, November 30th, 2009 After 3 weeks of living in Rome, having already become bored with the monotony of the club scene that entices many global students, my chums and I chose to take in a fashion event presented by AltaRoma. We stayed in an appartement rome centrum. It was to be held at the historic Tempio di Adriano in Piazza di Pietra, an environment that contrasted sharply with the high tech feel of the event.
AltaRoma, a corporation that provides opportunities and fosters relationships among well-known Italian designers, encourages the cultivation of young, talent through coaching,’intended not only as a technique of safeguarding the artisan quality but also as the driving force of creativity, creativeness and technology,’ according to the AltaRoma website. Of course, walking into a room stuffed with some of the most trendy young people in Rome, while brandishing only my shabby beige messenger bag was quite menacing. However , we didn’t let that get in the way of occupying best seats and grabbing as much promo material as we could get our hands on.
the 1st act was called’Wit Open Shooting Roger Weiss,’ which consisted of folk dressed in colorful card shapes, many of them phallic, dancing around a still model as photographers shot round the stage. The music was set to techno remixes of favored American hip-hop songs, and the lighting beat to the beats of the music. This composition led one to a sort of hypnotic trance, which came as a welcome distraction after enduring more than forty-five minutes - about forty minutes too long in my viewpoint - of the same thing. The bored and out-of-sorts expression worn by the model was the mirror image of those worn by the gang, whose faces and outfits became increasingly more fascinating to watch than what was happening on stage. However , after the performance was over, I began to wonder if the absurdity of the act was precisely the point of it. Either way, it was something I’d never before, and might never again, experience.
The second act was a performance art piece by Chicks on Speed. I braced myself for something so foreign and creatively different I wouldn’t understand it, as the set commenced with what only can be portrayed as 2 howling banshees. 2 women, dressed in matching jumpsuit, used video images, as well as easy, every day and typically female, objects like stilettos, scissors and cloth to form afascinating and forceful performance. The set was an eclectic mixture of a rhythmic montage of derriere slapping to a cover of the Beach Boys song’Surfer Girl’, whose words were changed to form the ultimate female anthem [*CO]’super surfer girl in the death defying curl.’ The act finished in a dance party during which fashonistas and common students alike could get up on stage and dance to celebrate fashion, self-expression and life.
I walked out of the show re-energized and prepared for the next new and out-of-the- standard experience Rome had to throw my way. We returned to appartement centrum rome.