Flower-decked denim from Gucci x Dover Street Market and a Fornasetti face top the @anotherloves edit this week
Whoever thinks that floral embroidery should be reserved exclusively for womenswear is proved sorely wrong by this glorious denim jacket – complete with eye-catching flowers stitched delicately onto the front, and a pastoral tapestry scene starring a fox and cat, framed by blooms and bumble bees, on the back. It forms part of Gucci's forthcoming menswear capsule collection in collaboration with Dover Street Market London, available in store and online from June 12, 2016 and likely to have women everywhere green with envy. Launching at the same time, and published by DSM-based booksellers IDEA, is a highly collectible limited-edition photo-book by cult photographer Ari Marcopoulos for the house, capturing Gucci's pre-AW16 women’s and menswear collections by Alessandro Michele. Gucci fans, rejoice!
Decorative arts maestro Piero Fornasetti first saw the face of Italian soprano Lina Cavalieri while leafing through a 19th-century French magazine in the 1930s, and was immediately captivated by her powerful beauty. Thereafter he reimagined her face in over 350 iterations, on glasses, paperweights, candlesticks and plates – an excellent example of which can be seen here. Cavalieri's dainty features have been shown sleeping, shhh-ing (finger to lips), veiled, mustachioed and more courtesy of the Italian designer – and her face – which secured her the title of "most beautiful woman in the world" in her own time – remains the key motif of the Fornasetti brand to this day.
For this week's A Brief History column on anothermag.com, curator Shonagh Marshall turned her gaze to the most dazzling of embellishments: the sequin, tracing its evolution from the 13th-century right up to the present day. One of our favourite sequined offerings this season comes courtesy of this dusty pink silk camisole by Lanvin. Covered in circular, shimmering paillettes, it is joyfully reminiscent of the embellished garments favoured by 1920s flappers. Perfect for dancefloor flaunting!
Another example of impeccable Italian design, this three-legged coffee maker by Memphis Group designer Michele de Lucchi would have us jumping out of bed to whip up our morning brew. Playful, colourful and ornamental it embodies all the qualities of the seminal post-modern movement. "It's amazingly characterful," explains AnOther Lover Maisie Skidmore of her choice. "The Memphis Group reacted against the starkness of modernism (which I also love) but when it comes to kitchen implements, a little kitsch goes a long way."
For the past 11 years A.P.C. founder and creative director Jean Touitou, along with London-based designer Jessica Ogden, has been creating gorgeous quilts using scraps of leftover fabric from past A.P.C. seasons. This year, the duo's collection was dreamt up, in their own words, "during a joint trip to Pantelleria, a small Italian island located between Sicily and Tunisia. That environment influenced the graphic composition of...the quilts and the names they were given" (think: Amphitheatre, Tunisia Tile and Tremontane). Alongside the covetable coverings, which come in three different sizes, op-art-esque cushions are also for sale, allowing A.P.C. fans to take home a smaller slice of Italian sunshine if they so wish.
