Today's guest is a disability designer and advocate who launched her own brand, Unhidden Clothing, in 2017. Besides being an ex-student of mine, she is someone I am really proud of. She has been a disability advocate due to her own gastrointestinal disabilities, and her career as a garment technologist in fashion lead her to start Unhidden when she encountered so many issues with her fellow hospital patients not being able to cover up or be comfortable in their own clothing, and the lack of...

Today’s guest launched her company two years ago, focusing on connecting influential members of Generation Z between the ages of 16 and 25 with the brands they love, and since then it’s grown rapidly. In these past two years, she has been featured in Forbes magazine, been invited to take part in TEDx talk, and featured in Adages ‘40 under 40’. ...Oh, and she is only 20 years old. Today we talk about Zfluence, the agency she created, and how she wants to add authenticity to the social media...

Our guest today is the second generation of a family-run Italian brand that started in the mid-’70s. With him, we discover how the ‘made in Italy’ has changed in these past 40 years and how he took the company in a new direction, and most recently, how he introduced a new business model. We talk about how the Messori brand started in an Italian town, then expanded across Europe, and now into Africa, where they are becoming a reference point in men’s tailoring. And above all, how  Covid_19...

2020 was the year that fashion and gaming became more entwined than ever before. Due to lockdown and social distancing, people were drawn more and more into the gaming world, and it became an outlet for them to release their creativity and create their own ideal worlds. With Fashion Weeks moving onto digital platforms, it wasn’t long before brands started noticing the appeal of the gaming world, and some iconic brands began creating skins for  games such as League of Legends and The...

Today we are in the Netherlands, talking with someone I met back in London in 2014. Already then I was intrigued by how he was embracing design from such an innovative perspective. During Dutch Design Week Virtual, helped in October,  he spoke about a project that he has spent the last 10 months working on called ‘ The New Standard 2030, The Right Choice: A series of Positive Concepts ’ During these 10 months, he worked and developed four concepts, Re-Engineering home and lifestyle products...

Today we are going back to the rainbow nation, South Africa, and am really happy to speak with our guest, who is a key player in helping to shape the future of South African fashion. Trained at the London College of Fashion, then becoming a senior designer for Frank Usher, to successfully running his own couture business for over 25 years in South Africa he has reached the top of his field, designing for South Africa's elite and winning many prestigious international and local awards. In 2011...

Today's guest is someone I am really honored and excited to be talking to, and thanks to her, this week's episode takes me back, even though via zoom, to a country and city that are very close to my heart, and a place where I lived for many years My guest today is the founder of South African Fashion Week, and for the past 23 years, she has been working non-stop to mentor, educate and promote amazing talents from all over South Africa. This upcoming fashion week, which will be held from  22...

Today's guest is someone who I met recently and I have to admit, his energy and passion are so contagious you just can’t stop, or rather, you don’t want to stop him talking. From his early days as a dancer in CATS to performing an erotic Cirque du Soleil cabaret in Las Vegas, with costumes designed by Thierry Mugler, to becoming Celine Dion's stylist and creative consultant, as well as now pursuing his career as an illustrator.  Today's guest is truly a man for seasons. For today's episode,...

With today's guest, we talk about the moving image, in particular video and film. Our guest is a consultant, film festival strategist, and publicist focusing on fashion, lifestyle, and contemporary culture.  He built his experience in fashion film as one of the founding members of the Berlin Fashion Film Festival, and since 2016 he has been consulting brands, productions companies, and film directors in the creation and distribution of video content across a range of publications and film...

For Today's guest we travel back to East London and to be honest, is someone I’ve never met before. I stumbled across his work on Instagram and was immediately captivated by it, so much so that I reached out to him, inviting him as a guest. He is a fine artist who defines himself as an illusionist, where through his paintings, sculptures, and drawings he investigates the neurological impairment and the fragility of human memory and the desire to acknowledge and record those he has and has not...

How do you introduce someone who needs no introduction, and finding one word to describe today's guest is impossible, iconic, legendary, visionary are a few that come to mind. So I'm here in Miami, on Collins Ave at the studio of Barbara Hulanicki, founder of the iconic label Biba. I met Barbara 3 years ago upon my arrival in Miami and she’s become a great friend, my saving grace, and a go-to person for a good old fashion gossip session. Her energy and laughter are contagious and she's...

For today’s guest, we travel back to the UK and meet a friend and colleague who defines herself a Polymath, someone whose expertise lies in different subjects, solving problems by using learnings from every perspective. She is someone who blurs or rather pushes and explores the boundaries in garment construction, from crossing over from pattern cutting, traditional Savile row tailoring skills with knitting skills, to working with surgeons developing surgical pattern cutting techniques, all...

Today's guest is an Irishman, a Dubliner to be precise who has for the past 12 years called NYC home. He calls himself the CONTRARY MAN, someone who has followed his own path and earned great experience along the way. I like to think of him as an ethnographer because through his Socially Conscious Photography he aims to create awareness of issues affecting youth culture and to break the cycle of negativity, his image narrate and explores the contemporary. Susan Sontag in her book  ‘ON...

What do Maria Callas, Lady Emma Hamilton, Electric music, and drag all have in common? This week's guest is an ex-colleague of mine, Italian but based in London, he is a performer, a lecturer of cultural studies, collaborator with the Victoria & Albert Museum in London,  and someone who has worked for the Royal Opera House in London the BBC, and the American Ballet Theatre in NYC. He describes himself as a performance artist who uses his body as a research tool,  and whose aim is to...

Today's guest is based in London and is someone I’ve known for many years, she has been called a fashion bouncer, by Kim Jones, Artistic Director at Dior Men's;  Ponystep Magazine described her as 'someone who is universally liked', both are accurate,  however, she prefers to call herself The Connector. From PA to DJ, from working with not 1 but 2 Freuds to co-founding the  knitwear label, SIBLING, to  becoming a Brand Ambassador and now talking about her latest project, the EMERGENCY...

Hello and welcome to TEXTURAL ANTHOLOGIES the podcast series that explores the personal and professional side of creative individuals in various industries. My name is Massimo Casagrande In this first series I will focus on the SLASH CULTURE. I decided to record these informal conversations with people I have met over the past 20 years,  people I have worked with, partied with, studied with and met in different stages of my life in the various cities and countries where I have lived and...

It seems fitting to have as my first guest for this podcast series, a friend who, when asked to describe herself with one word, choose the word Dilettante. She was the best friend of performance artist Leigh Bowery, as well as being the subject of a few Lucian Freud paintings, the most famous being BENEFITS SUPERVISOR SLEEPING, which, when sold in 2015, was the most expensive painting ever sold by a then living artist. She has become an artist in her own right, designed prints for Fendi...