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After an incredibly long and demanding day at Comme des Garçons, in the historic show-room on Place Vendôme in Paris, I decide to push through a bit longer and visit Manuelle Guibal at Quai aux Fleurs, inside the Ile de la Cité. I know it’s close, but I am so exhausted that I don’t even have the energy to search for the address on my historic map.

I take a taxi and let it carry me to the destination, without thinking about anything except how foolish I was not to choose the metro in order to avoid Paris rush-hour traffic. Close to my destination, a violent thunderstorm hits, one of those targeted storms, with clear skies on one side and threatening dark clouds, of course on my side. It delivers its final blows: just enough time to get out of the car and cross the streets, I find myself drenched from head to toe.

Weary, cold and slightly disheartened, I step into the lively Guibal’s show-room. My “Bonsoir, IVO MILAN”, cuts through the buzzing chatter, drawing surprised faces and wide eyes toward me, making me feel like a mere shadow of myself. At that very moment, a warm male voice dissolves any hesitation and greets me with a single, simple question: “Champagne?”

I love telling the story of how the collaboration with Manuelle Guibal began, because her world is just like this: joyful and marked by a welcoming rhythm, instantly familiar, full of complicity, professionalism and deep involvement. The Maison is like a family, a gynaeceum of women where Manuelle reassures and uplifts each one, listening with passionate and tender gaze, curiously observing how her clientele responds to each seasonal offering and enjoying getting to know their diverse backgrounds.

The designer works with color, interpreting it across different styles and fabrics, presenting it in a way that is both captivating and desirable. The creative soul – she also is a sculptor and a painter – and her sociable nature allow her to easily connect with local artists. As a result, painter Manon Gignoux’s brushstrokes often appear on the cotton canvases of voluminous dresses and shirts.

It’s a comforting, urban language that strongly embodies a vibrant yet relaxed Parisian esprit, evident in the choice of natural fabrics: cotton, silk, and washed linen, often iridescent, layered and enriched with bright or muted tones, always offered through a distinctly feminine lens. It’s a vision that celebrates freedom of movement, simplified through the use of drawstrings, elastic bands and the joy of mixing and matching pieces freely, not only within Guibal’s collections, but also with what already exists in one’s wardrobe.

Manuelle Guibal’s world evokes friendships, engaging stories, thoughtful research, culture, collaboration and a sense of the contemporary. It’s a generous world, full of the joie de vivre, attention and sentiment, work and sustainability

But it’s in the Maison’s own words that best define its atmosphere:

A spacious and light-filled place, a pot-pourri of sensations. You might hear Japanese, English, French, Portoguese or New Zealand accents, and feel as though you’re traveling the world through a swirl of voices, sounds and overlapping images. You might dream of escaping to wild, sandy beaches with swaying coconut palms… But don’t be fooled, Manuelle Guibal’s world is also a buzzing hive of research, dedication and activity!




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We have already had the opportunity to present the work of one of our most recent new entries, Melitta Baumeister, but it is with great satisfaction that we share the prestigious recognition she has just received as the winner of the 2025 edition of the National Design Award from the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York.

The most important United States institution, dedicated exclusively to historic and contemporary design, and home to one of the world’s most articulated collections, with over 215.000 objects that cover 30 centuries of history, insaugurated this award in 2000,in collaboration with the Millennium Council of the White House, to highlight the impact of design on daily life and our ecosystem. The awards, diverse in their categories (fashion, interiors, architecture, communication, etc.), honor innovation and projects that have the potential to generate transformations in the social and natural world.

And what connection does this have with Melitta’s work?

As she herself states:

In our studio, we create clothing that will be worn and become part of someone’s life. It will attract attention, spark conversations, and sometimes challenge perceptions, encouraging new ways of seeing the world.”

After the success of the 2023 edition of the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, the designer, of German origin, continues to confirm herself as a bright promise in the international fashion scene. Not only does her work manifest a strong aesthetic, where volumes and silhouettes become sculptural, surprising, and sometimes humorous and playful, but it is also deeply rooted in the ethics of slow-fashion, featuring a rich repertoire of enduring pieces and short supply chains with a low environmental impact.

So, why not take the opportunity to get to know some of her works, suitable for the in-between seasons, always with a strong transformative and timeless flavor?

 

Longuette ‘sculpture’ dress in polyester pleats hand dyed with iridescent effect, round-neck with profile in contrast of color, short rounded sleeves with circular band at the end, circular bottom with rigid inner band

Sculpture dress, long and lean, in recycled polyester and polyester jersey with bark texture, mock turtleneck with little buttons, long sleeves, padded band at the bottom with circular waves effect

Longuette ‘bomber’ dress, wide, in heavy nylon taffetas, round-neck with button on the back, sleeveless, big pocket applied on one side with high knit band, oversized bomber jacket like bottom with high knit band on the sides and longer on the back

Oversize peacoat in waterproof nylon canva, one chest, crater collar, zip-closure with double slider, vertical cut with opening on the back of the sleeve to be worn as a cloak, two welt pockets and two with zip in contrast of color on the back, two pockets applied on the bottom on the back, coulisse on the end of the sleeve and on the bottom of the peacoat

‘Sculpture’ dress, longuette, in polyester plissé with vertical folds on the bust and horizontal on the skirt with snakes tattoo print, round-neck, sleeveless, wide skirt and abstractly far from the body with wavy circle motif on the waist line

To discover the collections: Melitta Baumeister – Ivo Milan Radical Fashion

 

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After 24 years spent in our historic space in Santa Lucia street, the story of IVO MILAN starts again in Altinate street 149, along the continuation of the same ancient roman street, Annia Popilia, overlooking the magnificent Romanesque Santa Sofia church and alongside the Pesaro Palace (Pizzo today), residence of a young Mozart in 1770, during his visit of Padua. Not only, very close to the baroque San Gaetano church and its very famous museum complex that stands nearby.

Every day the shop completes itself with new details, becoming more and more comfortable and showing slowly its innate beauty thanks to the warm wood of the ground floor ceiling, to the visible irregular stone wall of the hallway, to the second room floor in Creta’ stone and to the medieval volts of the basement.

Returning operative again in the lively atmosphere of residents, filled with young students facing their difficult exams of the faculties of engineering, statistics, physics and mathematics, the technical pole of the University of Padua. While shopping or drinking coffee you are immersed in the typical university routine, where every operator, from the bartender to the baker is part of that world, calling boys and girls by name, knowing the teacher’s fame, participating in the outcome of the exam: passed or failed? Complicit and busy faces, often festive, despite the inevitable exam’s anxiety.

A new life, animated by a passing by of people deeply connected to the historic Altinate hamlet.

With the welcome of the neighborhood, with some little insights of the new shops, we come back with our Mix and Match, worn by Ginevra and Sari. The photographic set still to be set up, the tirelessly rhythm of the fittings still to be done, alongside with the depth of the last few months, led us to show a little bit of ourselves at the debut of the Summer season, still under the effects of the titanic move we’ve just faced.

Ginevra is wearing the hip-lenght jacket, slim, in stretch silk and elastan georgette in shaded gold by RUNDHOLZ DIP, the long and lean tank top in light and blue tones printed jersey by RUNDHOLZ,  the short and wide trousers in hemp, cotton and metal pinstripe by MARC LE BIHAN and the ‘friar-like’ sandal in leather, wood and expanded eva by RAWCLAYS. As for the accessories she has the bag in green tones calf and cow leather by NUMERO 10.

Sari is wearing the hip-lenght top in cold tinted viscose and cotton twill in aubergine tones by ZIGGY CHEN, the 5 pockets trousers in washed and flamed ramié and linen denim by FORME D’EXPRESSION and HALF sabot in hammered cowhide leather slipper style by TRIPPEN. As for the accessories she has vertical rectangular bag in smooth cowhide leather by ZIGGY CHEN.

All the new collection currently has the 20% discount for the mid-sales.

We remind you that we changed the opening hours, you can find us from from Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 1pm and from 3pm to 7 pm.

 

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How many times in the shop has an occasional and distracted adventurer started with this exclamation: “Oh, yes, Issey Miyake, the perfumes one!“.

An expression that, in all its naive purity, revealed the striking distance between our work as promoters and popularizers of the so-called Japanese school and the public actually reached in the city. Maybe it also happened simultaneously with one of the many windows focused on a futuristic garment by Issey Miyake. Each time, that sound confirms the long way still to go and the burning frustration of being misunderstood. Without triggering a competition between the world of perfumes and that of clothes, even those who are not in the trade know how much his story belonged to the latter, with perfume being a typical gadget of the most established designers.

Yet not in Padova.

Bringing Issey Miyake to the city 24 years ago, when the brand still did not have a generalized fame and his perfume did not yet exist, did not create status, but only circulated within evolved global niches. This meant an important acceleration towards complexity and an indisputable recognition to the shop. First of all, in order to present it, the space had to have the aesthetic ‘requisites’ compatible with the strict philosophy of the Maison, whose concern for the future, rather than sales and the diffusion of the brand, was aimed at the defense of its cultural prestige. The staff of the Parisian showroom came personally to make sure everything was set and then gave us the green light that the collaboration between Ivo Milan and the company could begin in 1998.

And it was immediatly a great love what would become a long adventure; a challenge on the edge of the most heated creative tension, interrupted only by the closure of the store in 2020 (at the time we could not imagine being able to reopen) and by the inevitable advance of other local competitors…

It is useless to dwell on the unmpteenth narrative around the work of Issey Miyake because there are more expert pens than us that have written and are writing about it. In our own small way, we have had more opportunities to present the brand in its different lines (Pleats Please, BaoBao, Issey Miyake-Fête, A-Poc, 132. 5, Cauliflower) and the satellite ones of the group (Haat, A-net with Final Home, Plantation and Zucca). Since we have worked with all of them for a long time, we wanted to put a particular focus on the one that bears his name, offering it in its most daring, free and joyful expressions. We believe that bringing witness to this propulsive collaboration is the least we can do to the many people who, spontaneously, in these days, have contacted us to thank us for allowing them the opportunity to be so close to the best of Issey Miyake.

An overview of photos, articles, videos (many on our youtube channel) about this long journey together, with all the gratitude to the poetry that it has brought to our work… Thank you!


 

 

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While the summer insists on its hottest manifestations, longing for holiday destinations, regenerating rhythms and locations, we return together to Sari with some outdoor shots.

An opportunity to observe, from other perspectives, lights and combinations the proposals of a catalog that is now close to welcoming the first autumn deliveries…Let’s go!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many thanks to GART for the location and to Andrea Rossi for the photos

 

Accessoires by: Shoto (shoes and bags), Zilla (bags), Chisaki (hats).

Clothing by: Marc Le BihanAlbum di FamigliaDaniela GregisJunya WatanabeForme d’ExpressionShu MoriyamaMaria Calderara

 

 



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