Distance and Affinity: Two Worlds, Two Seas. Personal Heritage as a Source for Antonio Marras’s Narrative

The title of this essay “Distance and Affinity: Two Worlds, Two Seas” is not an unintended pun. The two Worlds are fashion and craftsmanship, the way “to see” them – here – is navigating between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the rest of the seas bordering Italy. As we have seen during the fashion shows for the 2021 Spring/Summer collections,probably an effect of COVID-19, many designers of the Italian fashion industry have focused on the concept of Italianness. The Italian fashion industry seems to have returned to the concept of localism, co-working and national identity. Antonio Marras has also had these notions as a guide for his narrative and production. His origins arean infinite source of cultural inspiration. In his artistic production, the Sardinian spirit is continuously reproduced in an operation that we can call “cultural reappropriation”, exalting his Genius Loci and Italian craftsmanship even in the production of items that do not belong to fashion in the common meaning.During the 2018 Milan Design Week he presented the result of a major project, the Premiata Ditta Marras & Co, a co-working initiative that turned his concept store, Nonostantemarras, into a creative lab where many partnerships arose. He signed products for La Fabbrica del Lino, Fantin, Kiasmo,Saba, and Wall&Decò, creations that explain how Antonio Marras infuses his culture in all his work, not just in fashion.