Lithuanian fashion designer Popa releases debut album 'Arte e Finanza'

Popa (Maria Popadnicenko, born 1989 in Klaipeda), a Lithuanian fashion designer and singer, has released her debut album 'Arte e Finanza'. The 10-track album was written and produced with Gaetano Scognamiglio, who has worked with Calcutta and Alan Sorrenti. It includes the singles 'Arte e Finanza' and 'Bugie'. Popa describes the songs as 'impressionistic sketches of Italy from my ironic, light, Baltic perspective', touching on finance wolves in suits, gallerists, artists, chic Milanese ladies, and bon vivants alongside references to Italian pop culture figures like Carrà, Boncompagni, Malgioglio, and Battisti. The music features 1960s sonorities with percussion and orchestral strings and winds. Popa aims to blend art and fashion, drawing on contemporary and historical fashion iconography. She views her work not as satire or celebration but as 'daydreams, a sung and visual form of psychomagia' mapping a 'champagne pop globe of the jet-set' spanning London, Los Angeles, New York, St. Moritz, St. Tropez, and Positano, with cinematic and literary references from Flaubert to the Vanzina brothers, starting from Milan (Linate).