Grazia previews its special issue: “Fashion, design and the virtual world”

Giulio Cappellini is featured guest editor of this special edition of the magazine

Grazia, the magazine under the editorship of Silvia Grilli, is on the newsstands with a special issue: “Fashion, design and the virtual world”, which sees Giulio Cappellini as featured guest editor.

The special edition of the magazine looks at the fusion of fashion and design and the new expressive opportunities introduced by the metaverse. A narration which, recounted through the eyes of famous designer, architect and entrepreneur, Giulio Cappellini, who recently received the Compasso d ‘oro alla carriera – the oldest and most authoritative world design award – guides Grazia readers on a journey exploring how space and the way we live it has changed, suspended between the real and the virtual world.

“I asked a great architect like Giulio Cappellini to be guest editor of this issue of Grazia, focussing on the encounter between design and fashion and exploration of creative freedom that the metaverse can offer. We have thus created this collector’s issue, where beauty becomes a life philosophy and the front cover a unique invention, “said Grazia editor, Silvia Grilli.

“It was a great pleasure and honour for me to have the chance to narrate the various facets of design for an attentive and wide audience, set against a contemporary and comprehensive view of our way of life”, Giulio Cappellini, emphasised.

The architect is also the protagonist of an exclusive interview that opens this special edition of Grazia. From his beginnings in the family business, followed by trips abroad discovering talents that today are some the most brilliant creative minds on the scene, spanning his passion for the Far East, Cappellini talks about himself and explains why today the challenge is not only to design something beautiful and useful, but to have it tell a story.

In this issue of Grazia, the guest editor also meets two names from the world of design. In the encounter with British designer Jasper Morrison who, with his simple and functional masterpieces has revolutionised design, and who in his exchange with Cappellini looks at how the new frontier is imparting lessons in sustainability, and the designer, Francesca Lanzavecchia, who explains to Cappellini how the virtual dimension will endow everyone with new freedoms.

Guiding readers over the pages of this special edition will be the voices of archistar and established talents.
These include Marc Newson, who explains to Grazia that, in the new virtual world, it will be love for beauty that makes the difference, and Rodolfo Dordoni who brings readers into his world of empathy and poetry. And also, Paola Navone, who, in the pages of the issue, explains if you want to reinvent objects and environments, you must never stop being surprised; Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec who have revolutionised design, showing us that the real strength of an object lies in its grace, and Patricia Urquiola explains to Grazia how we will be able to build spaces in which objects and technology are linked to our emotions and, not overlooking contributions from designers Guglielmo Poletti, Keiji Takeuchi, Sebastian Herkner, Panter&Tourron and Chiara Andreatti.

To enrich this special issue of Grazia, an exclusive reportage has been given over to collectible furniture pieces that combine design and fashion, created by great designers and chosen by Cappellini for their power to transform spaces.

An alliance – that between design and fashion – was also the escort underpinning the selection of the guest editor’s most iconic models of eyewear and bags, a leitmotif that continues in the fashion by Grazia pages, which has spawned a vibrant and colourful urban style in the hustle and bustle City of Milan that never sleeps – and beauty, which today is also virtual thanks to digital avatars that allow us to live unique experiences, all under the banner of freedom to dare.

The actress Coco Rebecca Edogamhe is the cover face of this special edition of Grazia and, by framing a QR code, her face will come alive, enabling readers to enter a three-dimensional reality. She has become a symbol for many young people with ethnic roots thanks to the series Summertime and she poses for Grazia in a fashion spread suspended between real and virtual worlds, like the one where her generation is trying to express its freedom.

The narrative of the encounter between fashion and design in the new issue of Grazia was enthusiastically embraced by the market and by numerous advertisers – managed by Mediamond – that opted to be part of this special issue, which can boast more than 100 pages in advertising sales.