Featured in Tess Magazine: Cou(l)ture Migrante
Daniele Orlandi is one of the designers behind Cou(l)ture Migrante, a Como-based social enterprise that trains asylum seekers and migrants in tailoring, profiled by Tess Magazine (La Provincia's quarterly supplement) in a feature titled "Cou(l)ture Migrante: la dignità è di moda". Written by Marilena Lualdi, with photography by Andrea Butti, the piece centres on project coordinator Chiara Gismondi and the people trained through the programme.
About the interview
The article traces Cou(l)ture Migrante back to two things happening in Como at the same time: a local tailoring tradition in need of new energy to carry it forward, and the 2016 rise in the number of migrants arriving in the city, a historic border crossing. Based at the Chiostrino Artificio, a community centre in the city, the project turned that convergence into a social enterprise offering a year of training in tailoring to asylum seekers and migrants.
Daniele is named as one of the professionals — alongside Valentina Rinaldi — who shaped that first year of training, and the designer currently in charge of running the tailoring workshop as its manager, reporting to Chiara Gismondi, the project's founder and coordinator. His own path is described briefly: training originally aimed at medicine, a stronger pull toward fabric and pattern, and his own atelier founded in Como in 2014, with a shared focus on womenswear and on sustainability that carries over into his work with Cou(l)ture Migrante's growing menswear line.
The piece describes the project's growth in concrete terms: the training programme began in 2018 with 18 asylum seekers from Nigeria, Gambia, Pakistan, Ivory Coast and Iraq, some of whom already had tailoring experience in their home countries. It now produces women's, men's and children's pieces plus accessories, working on a circular-economy basis — all garments are made from warehouse stock or supply-chain leftovers that would otherwise go to waste, including the "Solo Mio" spring/summer collection (a collaborative project with Daniele Orlandi) whose name signals the uniqueness of each piece. A separate sidebar on the same spread lists the project's wide network of partner cooperatives, associations and companies, including Confindustria Como, Lisa spa, Tessitura Taborelli, Delli Fiori and Living Divani.
Source
Tess Magazine, quarterly supplement of La Provincia — "In Sartoria" section, pp. 48-53. Text by Marilena Lualdi, photography by Andrea Butti. [Link to digital newsstand] Project website: www.coulturemigrante.it