Maria Calderara's FW23 Collection with Luca Maria Patella

Italian fashion designer Maria Calderara has launched her autumn-winter 2023 collection titled "Questo è burro" in collaboration with artist Luca Maria Patella (born 1934 in Rome). The collection integrates images from Patella's 1967 short film "Terra Animata" into garments, not as mere citations but as generative elements. Calderara treated the photographs by hiding them inside jackets for intimate viewing, then later transformed them into chromatic sequences that became fabrics. She modified the color scales to high saturation, creating liquid-like luminous effects on unconventional textures. The images lose their original filmic grain and narrative sequence but regain movement through the fabric's texture and the wearer's gestures. This collaboration follows Calderara's hosting of the retrospective "Luca e Rosa. Opere filmiche di Patella e Foschi, 1965-71+2000" at her Milan exhibition space in November 2022, curated by Bruno di Marino and Elio Grazioli. Calderara, a conceptual art collector, approaches the collaboration as an intimate conceptual operation involving transformation and re-semantization of visual materials, blurring boundaries between art, design, and high craftsmanship. The collection challenges conventional definitions of clothing, proposing "abiti-opera" (garment-works) that require a new category for understanding.