We are in Bergamo, but the journey begins far away, in Tokyo, the city of birth and education. Risa specializes at the prestigious Tama Art University in textile design, a path that leads her to the Miyake Design Studio, where she collaborates on the most artisanal of the lines, Haat.
The move to Italy follows, as often happens for Japanese talents, where she works until she is able to open her own tailor shop, creating only custom made garments, in the historic center of Bergamo. Finally, the big leap: a small production destined to a few select boutiques around the world, and a brand that carries her name: Risa Nakamura.
The designer brings into her workshop the great textile expertise of Japan and works with meticulous craftsmanship, ranging from chromatic research with plant-based dyes to the manual creation of buttons made from Calabrian briar wood, salvaging the remnants of this sturdy wood, typically used for smoking pipes. Her sensitivity extends even to the most overlooked materials, like buttons, sometimes barely visible because hidden by discreet flaps.
Japan influences the entire atmosphere of Risa’s work. Its presence is felt in every gesture: the selection of pure fibers, like Shetland wool, protected by its well-known roughness with natural linen linings; organic cotton suede, an alternative to the more casual sweatshirts; the crisp lightness of washed silk crepe de chine in her color palette. Japan twirls between strict or soft forms, inspired by workwear or the elements of the kimono, as well as in certain exercises typical of origami, where the development of geometry begins with small repeated connections, as seen in her patchwork skirt made of one hundred pieces, coming together to form a perfect circle.
Risa’s world, shared with her most loyal collaborator, her husband Emiliano, is dominated with a slow, patient, and sensitive aesthetic, dedicated to generating a surprising Zen-like balance: simplicity, care, and a laboriously engaging, existential gentleness.
To discover the new collection: ivomilan.com
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