Following on their first clay collection Third Eye, the designer duo composed by Fabiola Di Virgilio and Andrea Rosso, presents fifty hand-made and hand-painted blankets made of dead stock fabrics
RedDUO, a project of Fabiola Di Virgilio and Andrea Rosso
RedDUO is the brainchild of a young couple of creatives merging their visions and aesthetics into a sustainable project blending fashion, design and art. During the quiet months of lockdown, Fabiola Di Virgilio and Andrea Rosso – the minds behind RedDUO – were just life partners living between Milan and Bassano del Grappa, in the province of Vicenza.
«We used to chat a lot. At one point we started sharing a lot of pictures of places, colors, patterns, materials… We decided to post them on Instagram under the name ‘RedDUO’ and that is when we began to imagine how a shared home would look like. We wondered about the most meticulous details: door handles, vases, palosanto holders, carpets, blankets», Rosso explains.
The purchase of their first house in Milan was the beginning of a challenging journey which pushed them to wonder about their different imageries and concepts of the domestic environment and to identify the potential touchpoints. «We are two different people with two distinctly defined imaginaries which are mixed in this project. It is interesting, but it can also be arduous sometimes. Our home must be an intimate and warm environment, full of stimuli. It is definitely not a conventional space», Di Virgilio says.
Completed by a think-tank, their home is a reflection of their unconventional tastes as well as their complementary creative approaches. Di Virgilio is a brand image expert, while Rosso has a thorough knowledge of materials, product design and sustainability. This duality is well expressed also by the name of the studio, a wordplay stemmed from Di Virgilio’s fashion magazine’s name – RedMilk – and Rosso’s surname – Italian for ‘red’.
The Third Eye collection and the word ‘organic’
Instead of looking elsewhere, Di Virgilio and Rosso decided to get involved in first person and produce some of the homeware products decorating their Milanese house from scratch. The first collection was a series of clay vases, amphorae and palosanto holders in which texture, warm colors and organic shapes are the absolute protagonists. «If you think of an industrial shape, you think of the square. On the other hand everything here is more rounded, artisanal, organic. The word ‘organic’ itself begins with an ‘O’, there is a curvature», Rosso explains. Each creation is conceived according to a basic principle: it must be coherent with their aesthetic standards, meaning it must integrate in their domestic environment giving life to a comprehensive tactile and visual experience.
All the pieces were hand-made by skilled potters located in the Veneto region, a northern Italy area renowned for its local traditional artisanal dexterity handed down through the generations. «In organicity, in matter, there is error, never saturation. Ceramic is organic. Throughout the molding process the pressure of the hands is never the same. That imperfection dictates the beauty of the final result», Rosso claims. In RedDUO’s products those tiny blemishes translate into unique pieces, each presenting distinctive features. This diversity is not only embraced by Di Virgilio and Rosso, but also cherished, as they believe that nowadays having a totally handmade piece of craftmanship in the house represents an inestimable value.
Hand-made art blankets: Loads of Lines
Following on from the previous pottery collection, in December 2022 RedDUO presented in the premises of Riviera, in Milan, Loads of Lines: fifty blankets hand-made by three tailors in six different variations. Not just blankets, but limited edition sustainable art pieces each of which telling a unique story of Italian sartorial mastery, recycle and rebirth.
«During the pandemic we had the chance to get to know several artisans of the Veneto area who shared with us their artistry, ideas and also fears regarding the industries and traditional crafts which are slowly dying. We decided to start this project also to support the sector, though we know we are a small brand, but our goal is to keep growing», explains Di Virgilio.
Made-in-Italy short supply chain products close to zero emissions
The collection – merging RedDUO’s contemporary imagery of the domestic environment with Italian handicraft from a sustainable perspective – is the result of an upcycling project which uses deadstock materials from the Italian textile company Bonotto. Each portion of the 100% wool fabric scraps – including the original selvedges – are reworked and reassembled in order to give new life and hopefully a new house to high-quality materials still full of potential. The final step of the production process was executed by Di Virgilio and Rosso who hand-painted the surfaces of the blankets with irregular strokes and lines – hence the name of the collection.
«In fashion and design ‘sustainability’ is one of the most frequently used words. It is known that made-in-Italy short supply chain products developed with an artisanal approach are close to zero emissions. For RedDUO this is a good start, but we must also pay attention to what comes next, the packaging, the booths… We have to do our best not to waste and look for new sustainable solutions. We still have a lot to learn», Rosso claims.
Hand-made, one-of-a-kind products and an homely dimension
In an age where the young generations are mainly drawn to tech sectors and digital innovation, Di Virgilio and Rosso rediscovered the patience and warmth of hand-made techniques and products by giving life to a one-of-a-kind brand defined by an almost homely dimension. The creative duo does not exclude that in the future the brand may also have a digital declination.
«We do not have a unique way of seeing things, we are not afraid of bringing the project into the digital world one day. If they are able to bring that kind of intimacy into the digital world, then it could be quite a success», he says. «A brand can be told in different ways. The communication can be digital, even though the product is 100% hand-made. This could be a potential link indeed», adds Di Virgilio.
In the meantime the creative couple is already at work on the next chapter of the project which will give continuity to the all-encompassing intimate home experience provided by their collections.
RedDUO
Sustainable short-chain homeware brand, brainchild of fashion designer and editor Fabiola Di Virgilio and creative director and CEO of Diesel Living Andrea Rosso. Loads of Lines comprises fifty 2m x 1.4m blankets in six different variations. The new collection is available on RedMilk space, the e-commerce of RedMilkMagazine, of which Di Virgilio is the editor in chief.
