REPORTAGE: Recycled Paper Dress Designs by Cristina Morozzi

18 paper dresses by Caterina Crepax can be admired at the Fashion Research Italy Foundation in Bologna, in an exhibition that explores the themes of sustainability and beauty. Read the reportage by Cristina Morozzi.

Up to the end of April, the Fashion Research Italy Foundation in Bologna is hosting an exhibition entitled The Kindness of Paper – Sustainability is Kindness (original: Gentilezza della carta – La sostenibilità è bellezza), featuring 18 stunning paper sculpture dresses created by Caterina Crepax and displayed on Bonaveri mannequins.

Caterina, daughter of famous Italian comics artist Guido Crepax, has found in paper the ideal material with which to express her creativity and manual skills. Her dresses feature patterned motifs that reproduce the motifs of the fabrics from the archive of the Fashion Research Italy Foundation, founded in 2015 by Alberto Masotti, president of the La Perla brand, to support “made in Italy” in the fashion and design sectors through consulting and training activities.

The exhibition also celebrates the inauguration of the Sustainability Point (original: Punto Sostenibilità), the most comprehensive Italian physical and digital archive of sustainable textile materials including recycled wool, regenerated silk and biodegradable jersey.

Caterina’s dresses are made entirely from recycled paper from the historic Cordenons paper mill and were displayed on Bonaveri Schläppi mannequins, which are made from an innovative material created using renewable sources, revealing the artist’s imagination and talent in manipulating fragile paper to create original dresses inspired by nature, which we also see in trends this Spring.

These beautiful dresses are so stunningly created that they hardly seem made of delicate paper. They are pieces of art that are made not to be worn, but merely admired.

Cristina Morozzi