Come Inside the Delphinarium
Delfina Delettrez‘s friend Emanuela Nobile Mino has taken a look at five years of her surrealist design in an exhibition which opened in Florence during Pitti. “Delphinarium,” which runs through September 10 at Florence’s new Galleria Antonella Villanova, offers a selection of key pieces from the 10 collections in Delettrez’s curiosity cabinet and a film Asia Argento shot of the Roman jeweler polishing stones in an old church several years ago when she just started. Creepy crawly animals transformed into rings, skeletal hands cast in silver for a belt, Daliesque Lips and eye baubles and a fat polychrome tortoise cuff typify Delettrez’s natural, slightly eerie style which has been inspired by her childhood in Brazil and her own mischievous since of mystery. Mino was wearing a prized piece from one of Delettrez’s earliest collections: a skeletal Michael Jackson in thriller mode. And the curator had fun in series of clear bubble cases to display Deletrrez’s wildlife pieces with real bees, blue frogs and a crustacean.
On hand for the show, wearing a marble dress from her friend Marco de Vincenzo cinched with her latest creation: an articulated metal cinch belt which looks as though it was inspired by a mysterious, old machine, Delettrez said she had a hard time looking over her past work and choosing what to show. “I have a very personal relation to all this. For me every piece is iconic,” she said. Although Delettrez didn’t want to share too much about the next collection she will present in Paris during the ready-to-wear collections in October, she did admit she’s going back to color. My last collection was all about natural materials, marbles, mosaics and metals, but this time I’ve gone back to wear I started in enamel.”
