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GIANNI CALIGNANO FOR MNE MAGAZIN: Sensual woman inspired the collection I will present at MFW

Photo: Atif Abu-Samra

Italian couture designer Gianni Calignano will close the Montenegro Fashion Week on April 21st at Hilton hotel.
This will mark his return to our country after 18 years and the first time he will present his unique creations in Podgorica.
– I met Vesna Mandić about 20 years ago at Alta Roma in a fashion show of mine. We became very good friends and it started a real professional relationship and cooperation. In the last few years she invited me in Montenegro and in Belgrade for the fashion shows – says Calignano for Montenegro magazin.
The collection he will show at the Montenegro Fashion Week consists of pure silk dresses and the prevailing color is black, he adds. The sensual woman inspired it.
He likes how Montenegrins dress because they watch out for combining fabrics and colors.
Few people here know that it was him who designed the wedding dress for Stefania Scoditti, when she was marrying our international player Mirko Vučinić.
Thirty years have passed since he opened his atelier in Nardò, the place he was born and raised in.
He says that Nardò is important because there are skillful dressmakers and embroiderers there.
The atelier was dedicated to his mother who was a dressmaker.
– My mother was very important for my professional development. She conditioned the design feature and the embroidery feature of my job. The most beautiful memory is that in which my mother is working on a dress of a customer of hers – Calignano relives his memories of that time.
He tells us that the most inspirational woman he worked with was Kerry Kennedy.
– She is the most beautiful woman I worked with and inspired me for creating the dresses she wore. She came in Nardò in 2013 and visited my atelier. She was enchanted and since that moment our beautiful friendship was born – says Calignano for Montenegro magazin.
He adds that he is very impressed by the new fashion designers.
– They are very creative – he tells us.
There was this beautiful thing he said in one interview – I dress all women who have the will to dream.
– Dreams belong specially to the woman. The woman's dreams come true by my fashion creations – he explains to us.
In the end of our conversation he reveals that for him the timeless garment is the black sheath dress, which is a symbol of femininity and elegance.
Bojana Radonjić
Photo: Private archive