{"id":4161,"date":"2026-02-28T16:20:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T16:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fondazionemcube.it\/?p=4161"},"modified":"2026-04-20T17:42:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T17:42:48","slug":"fmc-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fondazionemcube.it\/en\/fmc-10\/","title":{"rendered":"FMC #10"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

02.2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n
FMC \/\/ March 2026. <\/strong>Forthcoming events<\/strong><\/a><\/div><\/summary>
\n

01-31.03 \/ the FASHION HERITAGE ACADEMY meets students
<\/strong>In March, the M-Cube Foundation continues to meet students in schools across Piedmont to present the brand-new Fashion Heritage Academy<\/strong><\/a> and the future professions in the world of fashion \u2014 spanning haute couture, cinema, and cosplaying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12.03 \/ <\/strong>Biomedical Visions: The Art of Science and the Science of Art<\/strong><\/a>
<\/strong>Our cross-disciplinary research between art and science continues. We will be joined by Marlene Bart, Cornelius Borck, Cat Dawson,<\/strong> and Lara Keuck<\/strong> to explore how images, in the context of biomedicine, can be interpreted and used by patients, artists, and scholars \u2014 and how it\u2019s possible to create new visual languages capable of engaging with the biomedical and public spheres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

25.03 \/ Lux Tour 2026
Rosal\u00eda<\/strong> is not just a singer \u2014 she\u2019s considered a pop visionary<\/strong>, capable of influencing fashion, live performance, and visual language. Her performances and music videos draw on symbolism, theatrical aesthetics, and visual elements that transcend music to become cultural, almost mythical narratives. We\u2019ll meet her in Milan to share new stories with you!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/details>\n\n\n\n

U.S.A. and THROW AWAY<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/div><\/summary>
\n

by Fabrizio Modina<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recent statement by the Trump administration about implementing a regulation that would require tourists to make their social media content and personal emails available in order to enter the country sparked a thought in me:
Do we really need<\/em> to go to the United States?
What do we expect to find there that we don\u2019t already have here \u2014 and perhaps in an even better form?<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In the 1990s \u2014 I admit it \u2014 I visited the U.S.A. several times, dazzled by a cinematic imagination that made everything seem magical, unreal, unattainable.
I\u2019m a collector and historian of pop culture; I couldn\u2019t live without Superman, Star Wars, Disney, and Madonna.
With all its plasticized aesthetics, its gold merely painted on the surface, and its total lack of history that somehow becomes a history of its own, the great America deceived us all a little.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But thirty years later, with hindsight, I\u2019ve come to embrace the radical idea that \u2014 at least once in a lifetime \u2014 New York is worth the trip, but the rest of it decidedly isn\u2019t. Not enough, at least, to sacrifice one\u2019s privacy just to please a nation that has become a shadow of itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while it\u2019s undeniable that, in cinema and music, the United States has given us artists and works of immortal impact, the same cannot be said for fashion. Despite the nationalist push from major publications like Vogue<\/em>, fashion has always played a completely secondary role compared to the European tradition and craftsmanship.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

If in Italy and Europe we don\u2019t show enough sensitivity to protest when Gucci and Tod\u2019s (among others) turn a blind eye to exploitative labor practices, when Dior has its workshops in Chinese factories in the basements of Tuscany produce \u20ac5,000 handbags, and when Herm\u00e8s skins crocodiles alive to make its million-dollar bags, then at the very least we could try boycotting the fashion of Mr. Trump\u2019s country \u2014 without losing much in the process.
Just as giving up Coca-Cola and McDonald\u2019s could only do our health some good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American fashion was born in Hollywood, riding the inspirational wave of the great divas\u2019 tailors \u2014 foremost among them Adrian<\/strong>, the man who, from Dorothy\u2019s ruby slippers to Joan Crawford\u2019s gowns, defined the image of the American woman for the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After him, in the 1960s, Halston<\/strong> and Oleg Cassini<\/strong> rose to prominence as the official couturiers of First Lady Jackie Kennedy<\/strong>, who had the notorious habit of loving Parisian designers a little too much. Unable to wear them without undermining Made in U.S.A., she would often ask her designers to adapt to the trends dictated by Dior<\/strong> and Balenciaga<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up to this point, then, there was no real competition for European haute couture. But by the 1980s, the first New York brands began to push forcefully to establish themselves in our market. While in Italy, France, and the United Kingdom the maisons of designers who would truly demolish and rebuild the very essence of fashion \u2014 Armani, Versace, Ferr\u00e9, Gaultier, Mugler, Lacroix, Ala\u00efa, Westwood<\/strong> \u2014 were emerging and thriving, labels like Ralph Lauren<\/strong> and Calvin Klein<\/strong>, to name the most famous, were beginning to appear in our stores from across the Atlantic.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

No one has succeeded more than Ralph Lauren<\/strong> in narrating not only the hypocrisy of the American dream, but also in delegitimizing a piece \u2014 perhaps the only one \u2014 of his country\u2019s own history, regurgitating it into a defined aesthetic rooted in the outsourcing of a stereotype.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short: Lauren codified the image of the perfect American, canonizing the essence of the WASP<\/strong> (White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant) in a bubble of upper-middle-class privilege where everyone is beautiful, blond, white, and rich; they play polo and tennis and attend the most prestigious colleges. His models wear riding boots, immaculate shirts, and navy blue blazers adorned with university crests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the designer, then, the \u201ctrue\u201d American \u2014 who is no color other than white \u2014 is, de facto, an Englishman. With all due respect to the Revolutionary War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Italians ended up buying tons of polo shirts embroidered with the polo player \u2014 tiny at the time, later growing enormously \u2014 forgetting that this practical item already existed and had been officially \u201cinvented\u201d by the French tennis player Ren\u00e9 Lacoste<\/strong> in 1926, even though Indians had been using it for equestrian sports for centuries. In other words: nothing new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even more emblematic is the success of Calvin Klein<\/strong>, the king of logo-elastic underwear, who gave American fashion a minimalist, essentialist turn, dressing career women in his strict gray suits as they slowly began climbing the ranks of Wall Street. All impressive, except that Giorgio Armani<\/strong> had already done it first. Once again: nothing new.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The embarrassment becomes even more evident when we try to identify a unique quality, an innovation, a spark of ingenuity in names that have become super cool in Europe without any real reason \u2014 simply because they are, wow!, American: Donna Karan, Michael Kors, Marc Jacobs<\/strong>, and to almost parodic levels, Tommy Hilfiger<\/strong> and Off-White<\/strong>. Look around, and it quickly becomes clear that we can perfectly well buy elsewhere, investing in and believing in smaller local brands that struggle to make their mark. Let Anna Wintour<\/strong> amuse herself with her prot\u00e9g\u00e9s, while we show pride in what we\u2019ve created in just over fifty years of great Italian (and European) fashion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we must look elsewhere, far away, let\u2019s focus instead on Japan, South Korea,<\/strong> and China<\/strong> \u2014 which is not just Shein<\/strong> and Temu<\/strong>, but a fertile ground for genuinely promising new talent, such as Robert Wun<\/strong> from Hong Kong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, amid all this plastic, the States have gifted us a few gems: what would Gucci have done without the magnificent Tom Ford<\/strong>, and more recently, what would Schiaparelli<\/strong> have done without Daniel Roseberry<\/strong>? Coincidentally, both Texans. Forget cowboys!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This leads me to conclude that Americans have, indeed, invented at least one fashion icon of our time: the jeans<\/strong>. Too bad the legend is only half true: the pants were created by Mr. Levi, but with fabrics coming from France (N\u00eemes) and Italy (Chieri, TO).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Trump can keep his Great America \u2014 we can truly do without it.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/details>\n\n\n\n

Fashion, a profession in evolution<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/div><\/summary>
\n

Discover the video talks from the M-Cube Foundation<\/strong>, starting with fashion and then soaring into so much more from the worlds of Modern Mythology!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doppia Zip<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Curated by Grita
Filming and editing by Simona Rapisarda<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phygital fashion<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Technology \u2014 and in particular AI \u2014 is revolutionizing every stage of the fashion creative and industrial process, while raising questions of ethics and authorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can collaboration between humans and machines work? Today, at Doppia Zip<\/strong>, Grita<\/strong> and Emanuela Zilio<\/strong>, Project Manager, discuss how new technologies and AI are transforming the creative and industrial phases of fashion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n