C41 Magazine double-interview: the story behind Renai[chance]

About the interview

The article opens tracing back to Orlandi decision to purse a career into fashion leave his medical studies. It was during a trip around Northern Europe in June 2008 when the idea crystallised as simply as "I want to make clothes". He returned to Italy to begin his training moving between Florence, Milan and Como, where his studio is now based — and the real turning point, the article notes, came earlier and closer to home: his sister's wedding dress.

Savaidis is the photographer of the SS2016 collection and campaign, which is why the two were interviewed together. Asked what "Renai[chance]" means, Orlandi explains he took the word from Danilo Venturi's book "Momenting the Memento": sounds like "Renaissance" but also contains "chance" — a double meaning he connects both to a shift in values within fashion and to his own personal rebirth in starting his professional path. Savaidis frames the same idea more broadly: rebirth and chance as something available to anyone, in any creative act, from a designer's dress to a sincere smile to a neighbour.

On where they see themselves in ten years, Orlandi says that he is still more focused on the next month than the next decade, but pictures a more structured business with his role more centred on research and development — and, having trained entirely in womenswear so far, names menswear as a genuine challenge he wants to take on, exploring the same variety and opportunities already available in women's fashion. Savaidis, for his part, describes wanting to move his photography away from superficial beauty looking for something simpler and more "humane".

Source

C41 Magazine — c41magazine.com, published online 8 June 2016. Written by Matteo.