They became famous in the 19th century when the gentlewomen used to wear the head coverings created by the able hands of the “trecciaiole”, groups of simple women who wove the wheat hay sat in front of the doors of their houses.

An elegant and popular habit was then born at the same time, which inspired the French comedy in five acts “Un chapeau de paille d’Italie” in 1851, written by Eugene Labiche. At the start of the 20th century, where the hat was still regarded as an essential female accessory, the comedy’s story was borrowed to make a film and an opera by Nino Rota in 1945. The immediate success of the opera also sanctioned the decline of the straw headgear, which was then forgotten from the 1950s onwards.

The accessory, which then seemed to have been abandoned, has been returning to the spotlight in the last few years, achieving massive success among young people and old. There are many workshops in the centre which are creating straw hats in perfect Florentine style, almost like little sculptures.

There are also people who let their creativity run wild and who are creating new, extrovert and original models, not only in straw, but also in felt and grid-worked. These are often one-off pieces for real connoisseurs. To tackle the summer heat or for the pleasure of having worn a piece of the history of Florence handicrafts.  

It is difficult to define the craft of this genuine Florentine with precision: a woman with great charisma, a charming and stylish person who specialises in a profession that she herself invented. Simonetta Doni is a wine designer, well she is actually the wine designer! A clearly famous designer who is specialised in the creation of wine labels.

A successful career dedicated to the image management of wine through its dressing. A creative who has acquired the secrets of communication and wine marketing through experience combined with timeless taste. A woman who dresses the bottle, praising it with the label.

“The success of a wine depends also on the way in which the label represents it. This is the initial impact on the consumer, an impact that may be decisive for the purchase.”
How can she be wrong in a world where image is everything? An excellent wine without suitable dressing loses its appeal.

Simonetta Doni has made an impression in just a few years with her grace, intuition and feminine creativity in a traditionally male world such as that of wine. Today she is the owner of "Doni & Associati", one of the very few studios specialised in the image of wine companies in the world. Her clients include some of the most important companies internationally, but also young innovative and emerging companies.

How did you come up with the idea of creating wine labels?

For my first labels a few years ago, I had certainly created beautiful images, but perhaps without fully understanding the value of communication and sales. A little later on, an enlightened producer asked me to invent a series of concepts that he intended to communicate: the smell of the earth, the seduction of the wine, the happiness that it could have given to those who drank it, its history, the work behind it, etc. I became aware of the value that a simple piece of paper could have. The challenge of achieving the goals was the springboard that made me concentrate on this form of communication for the passionate and all-involving world of wine.

Were your first approaches with this world very masculine?

In reality, dealing with a world that is mainly made up of men was a positive thing. I believe that female sensitivity brought added value to it. The comparison was always stimulating and constructive. Seeing things from a sometimes opposite point of view makes one find new and interesting solutions. There are now many of us who work and create fantastic projects in this world.

Where were you aware of having made it?

After the first label, which I call “aware”, other producers came to me and told me that they had seen that label. Therefore they asked to be study the image also for their products.

Which is the most difficult client?

There isn’t one in particular, but let’s say that the most demanding clients are those which make us always find new solutions with their countless requests and make us define even the tiniest detail in an almost maniacal way, which make the difference when all put together.

How difficult was it to make the image of wine labels more contemporary?

Once upon a time, the image was created only to say what was contained in that particular bottle and if something was depicted on it, this was often done by someone in the family who dabbled in painting or drawing who “created” the image. They weren’t concerned with communicating all the series of elements that are now vital and implementing the knowledge that we have now gained today. We always propose an innovative hypothesis among the possible alternatives, but certain companies still aren’t completely ready for these solutions. In reality, the large international competition will soon make us explore new paths, without losing the sense of history, where we will be able to also communicate using innovative and contemporary languages.

Info:
Studio Doni & Associati
Via Guelfa, 85 – 50129 Florence 
Tel. 055 26 80 23 – Fax 055 26 79 772
info@donieassociati.it - www.donieassociati.it

“Garrisca al vento il labaro viola…”. "the violet banner fluttering in the wind…" Who does not know the famous first line of the Fiorentina theme song by Narciso Parigi, which has been a loyal companion encouraging the actions of the Fleur-de-lis team since the 1950s, through the good and the bad times? 

He began his career at the age of 16 at Campi Bisenzio (where he was born on 29th November, 1927, singing on Radio Firenze and straight from there was taken to Rome by the RAI. A career which very soon passed to the other side of the ocean. 

Over his long career he has cut 5.500 titles and sold tens of millions of records.  Parigi has also starred In 17 films (he played in the The Graduates (1995) by Leonardo Pieraccioni, where he played the part of Berto or, in 1959 the realisation of the film Assi della Ribalta together with Ferdinando Baldi and was also ambassador of the Fiorentina song ("Un bacione a Firenze" to give just one example) in the United States and the rest of the world.  Narciso is a Fiorentina in every respect.  He is his city's emblem and just like its symbol, Parigi is a Fleur-de-Lis who has knowingly opened his petals to the entire world.

And Florence - which was never very magnanimous towards its own Masters from Dante onwards - has this time, and quite rightly so, placed Narciso amongst its artistic emblems and has awarded him a well-deserved title during the presentation of the book "Narciso Parigi, a Tuscan's sense of music and life from another era", which was held in 2006 at the Palazzo Vecchio.  A book with the Idea of celebrating the artistic birthday of this great Florentine artist, one of the few examples of the internationally famous "made in Tuscany", exactly 60 years after cutting his first record "Ho lasciato il mio cuore a Firenze" - I left my heart in Florence - (June 1946).  The book is a 300 page biography, published by Semper, which covers the life of "the voice of Florence in the world" from his beginning.  A book full of news, curiosities and photographs written by the musical critic, Giovanni Ballerini, with a preface by one of the best experts in the field of Italian songs, Paolo Limiti.

But during our telephone conversation, wherein Narciso retraces his early years, it is to his time spent in Campi Bisenzio that he frequently returns to and where he lingers over memories linked to his youth and the second world war…..he tells me of friends lost In the war, of them dying a hero's death, of the pain he has carried within him all his life……melancholy stories, measured, sometimes, by pauses of uncertainty during which, in the background, one hears the voice of his wife Fiorella, (to whom he has been married for 51 years), who reminds Narciso of names he cannot remember; sometimes, cadenced by meaningful silences falling after raw anecdotes, my imagination leads me to see those people, those places and even recreate the smell and noise of bombings. 

The post-war years were hard, but in Narciso's heart can be heard "i bei tempi che furono", (the good times that were),  the time of "….that Florence described in my songs….. Mattinata fiorentina, Firenze sogna…..", "i tempi di una Firenze sana….", Florentine morning….., Florence dreaming…., the times when Florence was good….   
In truth, Narciso Parigi is "a Tuscan from another time", but nevertheless a reality to be proud of.  For yesterday, today, tomorrow.  

A charming, smiling lady with caring, industrious hands.  Hands moving slowly in the air, as though caressing the most precious of work. 

Loretta Caponi, embroiderer and owner of the trade name known from Florence to all round the world, tells her story of a child who held a needle and thread in her hand for the first time at just five years old. 

"I don't think I had the perception then of what was happening to me. My parents were severe and in that period young girls had to have a vocation in life. I clearly remember that the first thing I made was a cushion depicting a young girl". 

A skill which she knew how to exploit, working initially for other people. 

"At 14 years old I was embroidering handkerchiefs and bras, they paid me one lira for each piece of finished work". 

Time passed and with it came love in the form of the painter Dino Campana, a pupil of Ottone Rosai, with whom she lived an enjoyable and creative life, filled with encounters and important friends. 

"My husband - she calmly relates - had his studio in Via degli Artisti and every evening at nine 'o' clock on the dot his friends would ring the doorbell". 

Friends whose surnames echoed those of text books.  From Vasco Pratolini to Mario Luzi to Giuseppe Ungaretti, Tommaso Landolfi, Piero Bigongiari and Romano Bilenchi. 
Years in which Loretta established lifelong friendships and began her collection of embroidery, acquired from her travels around the globe.  Thousands of incredible objects dating from the 15th century to the 30's of the 19th century. 

After the 1996 floods the first shop was opened, a world of materials, threads and colours where she realized exceptional weaves, first in Borgo Ognissanti and later in Via Tornabuoni, which is still here today and where she works together with her daughter Lucia and a team of collaborators.  An all female staff. 

"The problem - she laments - is that you can no longer find anyone.  Sometimes schools accompany their students to see the laboratory; but no-one wants to become an artisan, today who studies fashion, only wants to be a designer". 

January, time for Pitti Immagine, with its fashion shows, the rendezvous with fashion’s news and the events attended by the celebrities passing through the city.

For a few days - from Tuesday 13th to Friday 16th - Florence is transformed into the capital of the fashion industry.

Among the men’s collections and the previews of women’s collections the guest star of 2009 is Thom Browne, eclectic stylist from New York who will be showcasing the highlights of his new autumn/winter 2009 man’s collection in exclusive at Pitti; this is promising to be a great event, both on the catwalk and as a platform for a different style.

From his workshop in the heart of Manhattan Browne brings to Florence the fruits of his studies in man’s fashion, a rigorous but extremely original style reminiscent of the Fifties and Sixties. Ankle-length trousers, extra long ties and not a pair of socks in sight.

And while the Fortezza is taken over by men’s fashion, just a short distance away the post-industrial premises of the Customs in via Valfonda will host the women’s collection previews, which have been coming to the fore since January 2008.

Just a few day’s rest and the stands are changed to make room for the 68th edition of Pitti Immagine Bimbo, which will be held in Florence from 22nd to 24th January.

Mini trends for ever more fashionable kids. And to top it all, the usual rendezvous with the textiles all major fashion designers love: from 28th to 30th January Pitti Filati will be held at Leopolda station together with Vintage Selection, a fair of second-hand designer clothes.

Information:

Pitti Uomo n.75
from 13 to 16 January 2009

Pitti Bimbo n.68
from 22 to 24 January 2009

Pitti Filati n.67
from 28 to 30 January 2009
Firenze, Fortezza da Basso

Vintage Selection n.13
from 28 January to 1 February
Stazione Leopolda

Website: www.pittimmagine.com

Rina Corsi, soprano and mezzo-soprano is an authentic star. She is a proud Florentine and a woman whose life spans much of the twentieth century.
It is enough to say that she began her stage career in 1927 and stopped performing in 1965. During this time, she sang in the world’s largest theatres under the direction of prestigious Maestros and in the company of celebrated colleagues, such as Maria Callas.

She had her debut in Montevarchi in “Boheme” in April of 1927. She interpreted the part of Mimì and the next year at the Politeama di Pia, she played Nedda in “Pagliacci”. In 1931, she sang in “Francesca da Rimini” by Zandonai in Trieste and in Palermo. During the same season she also performed in “Boris Godunov”. She played the part of Marina many times to great critical acclaim. In August of 1932, she successfully acted at the Littorale di Noto in “La Lupa” by Pierantonio Tasca. In 1933, at Teatro Verdi in Florence, she triumphed when she interpreted the part of Mariella in “Il Piccolo Marat” alongside Hipolito Labaro.

She was then the protagonist in “Graziella” by Rossato at Teatro Bellini in Catania the 17th of March, 1934. Between 1933 and 1940 she added a lot of plays to her repertoire: “Mefistofele” (Margherita), “Madama Butterfly”, “Andrea Chenier”, “Mignon”, “Cavalleria Rusticana”, “La Favorita”, “Werther” (with Tito Schipa), “Il Franco Cacciatore”, “Fiorella” (by Italo Brancucci), “Adriana Lecouvreur”, “l’Heure Espagnole”, “L’Arlesiana”, “Fedora”, “Edopo Re”, “Il teatro dei Pupi”, “Mastro Pietro” by M. De Falla, “Il ballo delle Ingrate” by Monteverdi and in October of 1942, she debuted at the Fenice in Venice by singing the part of “Madonna Imperia” by Alfano.

Gifted with a prodigious musical memory that enabled her to learn many scores in only a number of days and to recite naturally, she was able to immediately immerse herself in characters. She was even admired outside of Italy where she performed in operas and recorded records.
Places that she traveled to include: Nice, Bastia, Madrid, Lisbon, Oporto, Amsterdam, Aja, Cairo…and even Japan for the first competition organized by the RAI. After her luminous career as a soprano, she became a mezzo-soprano renewing her success. Thanks to the bright and polished tone of her voice, it is possible to say that she holds a place of prestige. After almost 100 years, we like to remember some curious anecdotes that are related to her career.

She called her leap to fame a “stroke of destiny”. She was less than 25 years old when, after having learned “Il Piccolo Marat” with M. Mugone perfectly, she took part in an audition that was too close to the debut of the opera that would soon be performed in Teatro Verdi. It is obvious that people were saying: ‘yes, you are good but you need to return because there are not vacancies in the company”.

At the debut of the opera, the soprano woke up without a voice! The manager remembered Corsi and exclaimed: ‘Only that girl can save me”. The evening of the performance, Corsi was presented to the public as “Your fellow-citizen substituting the Soprano … who was all of a sudden unable to appear…”. From the first aria, it was a true triumph and at the end of the show, M. Mascagni was sent a telegram to inform him of the success of the performance. She often remembered with satisfaction that she had performed in her own city of Florence at the only, or certainly the first, showing of the Oberon put on at the Boboli Garden in June of 1951 during the XIVth Maggio Musicale Fiorentino event. She was often the guest of Count Chigi in Siena for concerts in the salon of his famous building.

Over the course of her career, she sang with important colleagues. In September of 1948 she sang with Maria Callas in Perugia. Let’s conclude with another vivid memory… It was a provincial piazza in Empoli or Fucecchio and she was performing in “Carro di Tespi” when a young and elegant Indro Montanelli passed by “haughtily indifferent, without even giving her a passing glance!” Who knows how many vivid stories Rina Corsi still has left to tell us.
We wish her a happy birthday.

It is not the smell of diluents nor the pungency of the resins that wraps this place to make it like an oasis on this buzzing isle of Manhattan but the spirit of the place, the energy, the trust, the belief and the unconditional love of human beings…For the last 12 years Maria Teresa Meloni Florentine painter has concentrated on oil portrait studies Thru her art she manages to render the deepest layers of the human soul vivid and clear.

They say she started at age seven

Yes I was in my third grade .. All the children were painting different shapes, different fruits and I came up with deposition of Christ….It is exactly the Virgin Mary looking at Christ on the Cross. You can see the profile of Mary with the veil on … after 20 years I studied my little painting again and visible under the veil there is sketched the roundness of the profiled cranium as if it was a study in order to give the prospective to the rest of the face that with just the veil on top would have resulted had to achieve,h’mmm and I was only 7” 

Her positive spirit made her go thru hardships and there were many of those…

I met Elizabeth Ross Johnson at the swimming pool of my gym. She became my first patron. When she came to my studio, I treated her like a neighbor. We had coffee, tea later on that week I was commissioned. This is a fairy tale kind of deal (she smiles). …I still had not realized who she was!! And that is how the New York story begins...

…How do you work?

“I am with the patrons all the time, but I move like a shadow not to disturb the rhythm of their daily lives. Of course we talk a great deal, and it is not only I asking questions,. I want them to get to know me too.I say- I come to you, you come to me – and then we meet in the middle point and that is the painting. …And then she paints for 4 months…And they say she was born too late in the centuries I think it is because of the city where I am from – Florence. The region itself – Tuscany. It was the smell, the feeling, and the peacefulness of antiquity of the 14th century. I embrace the philosophy, It is the time of the re-birth. The domination of The Vatican is very present but alas! It is the time of Pico Della Mirandola, His beautiful poetry is the manifest of the renaissance. Man is the only center of the universe with his free will and all his forms of expression are magnified.

…a meeting that you will never forget

Heath Leger… He was one of the most humble creatures I have ever met in my life. “I meet him at café Gitane, I was having breakfast At The table next to me Heath Leger was having his breakfast. Just when he was about to pay his bill I got up and said – “I wanted to introduce myself. My name is Maria Teresa Meloni. This is my office(upstairs is my studio, so you are in my office – he was already cracking up – I have been asking your friend NFA for 3 years to introduce me to you. But at this point I thought I would take the matter in my hands – I am a painter, I particularly like painting little children, and since you have one maybe you are interested in seeing my work – For sure - he said and he scribble his info on a little piece of paper (she shows the little note) Minutes later I am in my apartment talking to him through mylaptop. I showed him my work.

…and he said he had never seen anything like it. A couple of minutes later she was in his apartment talking about details

“ I remember that his phone would not stop ringing. He finally picked up and said “ I am with a friend of mine, I have to call you later”. He showed me beautiful photos of his daughter. We decided to meet in the first week of February.” You will come to live with Matilda and me. I do not want a portrait of Matylda only. I want to be there with her. I will hold her and you will paint us together”.
…I cannot stop thinking about it, what an awful thing his death was. If only we would have done it then.Even though it was a brief moment, the fact that he recognized something so special in me is priceless, since his talent was vast! I will go on telling this story forever….” 

Information: www.meloniportraits.com

If as a child I had known about Oriana Fallaci, to the question “what would you like to do when you grow up?”, I would have answered “I want to be Oriana Fallaci”.

I always admired her way of exaggerating, her extreme self-assuredness which allowed her to say what she thought, even when she was sometimes arrogant and provocative because she was full of “anger and pride”.

Right after the attack on the world trade center, she wanted to scream about her feelings of anger and pride to the entire world and the majority of us wanted to follow her lead. On September 11th 2001, a part of Oriana died.

Five years later, during the same month and almost on the same day, perhaps because of destiny, on the night between the 14th and the 15th of September 2006, Oriana left us, having succumbed to the Alien, as she used to call the kind of cancer that she suffered from in those years.

After the publication of Insciallah in 1990, the Tuscan writer went to live in New York. Here she began to write a novel that she would continue to work on throughout the ‘90s until September 11th 2001.

This was her last novel, published posthumously by her nephew Edward: “A Hat Full of Cherries” (Rizzoli, July 30th 2008) “A circular structure” makes her life similar to her last novel: both start off in Tuscany and return there in the end.

She was born in Florence on the 29th of June 1929 and chose to return to Florence to die, 77 years later.

Her novel starts in a small town in Chianti, Panzano, and ends in Tuscany. It is an extraordinary family epic that covers the years 1773 through 1889, with forays into the past and a future that leads up to the bombing of Florence in 1944 "True literature as she desired, what it would have finally been possible to declare without any hesitation about her, was ‘Oriana Fallaci, profession, writer”.

From the character to the individual, from laugher to reflection. This is the new Panariello. He is no longer the Tuscan performer who we have known for so many years who is capable of entertaining us for hours and hours during his show.

Now he is also engaged in the struggle for the defense of animals. This is certainly not because his activities would make us talk more about him. Giorgio does not need this kind of attention.

He is busy with his show “Del mio meglio live” which is part of the summer competition that began on the 14th of July last year in the Verona Arena, and included performances in Modena, Taormina, Palermo, Lecce, Cagliari, and Florence on the 4th and 5^th of September.

A cocktail that combines theatre, culture and solidarity in which there are alternating monologues between his most successful characters and moments of bitter reflection when there is talk of abandoned or badly treated animals.

Panariello started his noble project as an ambassador of the association “La squadra per gli Animali” that brings together Enpa, LAV, and the Lega Nazionale per la Difesa del Cane e Animalisti Italiani, the biggest national associations of animalists who have joined together to defend animals in difficulty.


The project has taken off thanks to the important contribution received In June on the occasion of the 39th edition of the Baroque Prize awarded by LucianoVinella, a well known entrepreneur from Puglia.

Its success also follows donations made during the summer championship and profits from Panariello’s book.Panariello’s “Non ti lascerò mai solo”, edited by Mondadori, is in bookstores from the 4th of October - which is also the festival of San Francesco, the patron ofanimals. Francesco is also the protagonist of a story about the relationship between a man and a dog.
Panariello, like the protagonist of this novel, has had his lifechanged for the better by his two dogs, Crusca and Zeus. 

Information on the web:
www.giorgiopanariello.it
www.lasquadraperglianimali.it