2025
2015
LINDA LOPPA: FASHION CREATIVES SHOULD ASPIRE TO INTERESTING AND SURPRISING BEAUTY
12th - 16th of May 2015
17th annual conference of IFFTI - International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes
“MOMENTING THE MEMENTO”
Polimoda, Florence
At the end of Linda Loppa's tenure as director, Polimoda organised an international conference that, according to Linda’s vision, became a vibrant and multifaceted event: an academic conference, a set of exhibitive and performative events, a moment of collective brainstorming and generally, a statement about how fashion education can be rethought and redesigned.
I collaborated with Linda on the talk sessions “In Conversation With” that took place in the Odeon Cinema, as well as on other curatorial aspects, which led to the realisation of the entire event.
It all began much earlier. In 2012, there was a gathering called “SALON” organised by Linda, which I attended alongside Barbara Vinken, Filep Motwary, Stefan Siegel, Danilo Venturi, Alberto Salvadori, and several other panellists.
Then, between 2014 and 2015, we began to meet more often with Linda, to envision how an academic conference could become a way to re-evoke the Florentine Fashion Biennial organised by Germano Celant, Ingrid Sischy, Franca Sozzani, and Luigi Settembrini in 1996/97. The twentieth anniversary of that great event, a real milestone for the history of fashion curating, would be a year later, in 2016, and we were totally aware of that.
Danilo Venturi wrote an essay titled “Momenting the Memento”, which provided a conceptual spark and also served as the title for the entire event.
Linda formed a small group, inviting Francesca Tacconi from Pitti Immagine, Alberto Salvadori from Marino Marini Museum, me, and a few more collaborators to serve as a jury and review the applications. We were gathering in a small room behind Linda’s office that gradually became our “dream” space. Walls were covered with images, prints from portfolios, various visual references, and keywords BODY | SPACE | DRESS | IMAGERY | CALLIGRAPHY | CRAFT that were pivotal to the curatorial and conceptual framework Linda had in mind.
This collaboration with Linda inspired a concept for a research and workshop-driven didactic methodology that I termed “transfashional”. We did not manage to develop it within Polimoda, but one year later, I initiated a project with the same title, which led me to explore deeper fashion-related art forms that I had always found inspiring and captivating.
Linda Loppa, creative director, curator, opinion leader
Along with founding the Flanders Fashion Institute and the ModeNatie forum in Belgium, Loppa was the head of the fashion department at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. She directed the MoMu — the Fashion Museum Antwerp, between 1998 and 2006. Loppa joined the Polimoda International Institute of Fashion Design & Marketing in Florence as director in 2007 and has overseen the institute’s establishment as a leading international school for design. In 2016, Loppa founded Linda Loppa Factory, a studio promoting art, culture, and education. She published two books: “Life is a Vortex” and “The 11 NFContainer Project”.
https://www.lindaloppafactory.com
Dobrila Denegri: Between the 12th and 16th of May, Polimoda will be hosting the 17th annual conference of IFFTI - International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes, but not only: it will be changing the very nature of the academic meeting.
With “MOMENTING THE MEMENTO”, a conference is about to become a real encounter between international creatives operating in the field of fashion and the city of Florence, with its majestic art and fashion history. It is imagined as a dynamic set of events, exhibitions, talks, lectures, salons and much more.
Where does the need to reshape the classical format of the academic conference come from?
Linda Loppa: Fashion is a dynamic medium, and the language of fashion has a visual or an emotional impact. We can write about fashion, we can perform, dance, create sound, movement, poetry, video or a manifest and share it with not only Academics but with all the people who are interested in the cultural impact of DRESS, BODY, WRITING, IMAGERY, CRAFT or SPACE we choose to expose a garment, an idea, a fabric, a word or a concept. Therefore, I feel we don’t have to sit in a conference hall listening to a few speakers who talk about this activity but take part in the act itself. I felt it was the moment to break the rules and to go further in the debate of what our profession is by actively participating in the performance.
DD: You are talking about creating a “moment”? What does the term “moment” mean to you?
LL: A moment is a strong emotional reaction in your body or your brain. A moment will change your vision, your perception of an object, of a vision, a strategy or a decision to take. It may change your life not immediately, but after a few years, one day you will recognise this moment.
Once I looked at the stars, I said to a friend who was with me, "My life is going to change," and it was true.
This was an important moment, but it also occurred while viewing an artist's work, meeting interesting people, walking in the city, or simply bringing people together, such as hopefully the IFFTI event.
Our lives are layered by moments that, in the end, form a book, a story, a career.
DD: Could you anticipate some of the highlights of the “MOMENTING THE MEMENTO” program?
LL: I think bringing interesting people together, such as writer and activist Ou Ning from China and anthropologist Michel Maffesoli from Paris, will be very enriching. I am already very happy with all the Skype interviews we have had with many interesting artists, academics, and teachers from Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. I am arranging blind dates with some Polimoda faculty members and the artists, and I believe this will create a great network for further discussions within our field. Finally, doing those ‘in situ’ actions in the Santa Croce Church, the Pazzi Chapel and Museum, and the National Library in Florence, and sharing them with all those friends working in education, is an incredible opportunity!
DD: Towards what we, as a collective, should aspire?
LL: We should be trained to have a free spirit to achieve a free future.
DD: Towards what fashion creatives should aspire?
LL: Fashion creatives should aspire to interesting and surprising beauty.
DD: Towards what an individual should aspire?
LL: Learn to develop vision; it is a sixth sense we can learn to develop.
Published at the Polimoda website during the IFFTI Conference
2025
12th - 16th of May 2015
17th annual conference of IFFTI - International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes
“MOMENTING THE MEMENTO”
Polimoda, Florence
At the end of Linda Loppa's tenure as director, Polimoda organised an international conference that, according to Linda’s vision, became a vibrant and multifaceted event: an academic conference, a set of exhibitive and performative events, a moment of collective brainstorming and generally, a statement about how fashion education can be rethought and redesigned.
I collaborated with Linda on the talk sessions “In Conversation With” that took place in the Odeon Cinema, as well as on other curatorial aspects, which led to the realisation of the entire event.
It all began much earlier. In 2012, there was a gathering called “SALON” organised by Linda, which I attended alongside Barbara Vinken, Filep Motwary, Stefan Siegel, Danilo Venturi, Alberto Salvadori, and several other panellists.
Then, between 2014 and 2015, we began to meet more often with Linda, to envision how an academic conference could become a way to re-evoke the Florentine Fashion Biennial organised by Germano Celant, Ingrid Sischy, Franca Sozzani, and Luigi Settembrini in 1996/97. The twentieth anniversary of that great event, a real milestone for the history of fashion curating, would be a year later, in 2016, and we were totally aware of that.
Danilo Venturi wrote an essay titled “Momenting the Memento”, which provided a conceptual spark and also served as the title for the entire event.
Linda formed a small group, inviting Francesca Tacconi from Pitti Immagine, Alberto Salvadori from Marino Marini Museum, me, and a few more collaborators to serve as a jury and review the applications. We were gathering in a small room behind Linda’s office that gradually became our “dream” space. Walls were covered with images, prints from portfolios, various visual references, and keywords BODY | SPACE | DRESS | IMAGERY | CALLIGRAPHY | CRAFT that were pivotal to the curatorial and conceptual framework Linda had in mind.
This collaboration with Linda inspired a concept for a research and workshop-driven didactic methodology that I termed “transfashional”. We did not manage to develop it within Polimoda, but one year later, I initiated a project with the same title, which led me to explore deeper fashion-related art forms that I had always found inspiring and captivating.
Linda Loppa, creative director, curator, opinion leader
Along with founding the Flanders Fashion Institute and the ModeNatie forum in Belgium, Loppa was the head of the fashion department at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. She directed the MoMu — the Fashion Museum Antwerp, between 1998 and 2006. Loppa joined the Polimoda International Institute of Fashion Design & Marketing in Florence as director in 2007 and has overseen the institute’s establishment as a leading international school for design. In 2016, Loppa founded Linda Loppa Factory, a studio promoting art, culture, and education. She published two books: “Life is a Vortex” and “The 11 NFContainer Project”.
https://www.lindaloppafactory.com
2015
LINDA LOPPA: FASHION CREATIVES SHOULD ASPIRE TO INTERESTING AND SURPRISING BEAUTY
Dobrila Denegri: Between the 12th and 16th of May, Polimoda will be hosting the 17th annual conference of IFFTI - International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes, but not only: it will be changing the very nature of the academic meeting.
With “MOMENTING THE MEMENTO”, a conference is about to become a real encounter between international creatives operating in the field of fashion and the city of Florence, with its majestic art and fashion history. It is imagined as a dynamic set of events, exhibitions, talks, lectures, salons and much more.
Where does the need to reshape the classical format of the academic conference come from?
Linda Loppa: Fashion is a dynamic medium, and the language of fashion has a visual or an emotional impact. We can write about fashion, we can perform, dance, create sound, movement, poetry, video or a manifest and share it with not only Academics but with all the people who are interested in the cultural impact of DRESS, BODY, WRITING, IMAGERY, CRAFT or SPACE we choose to expose a garment, an idea, a fabric, a word or a concept. Therefore, I feel we don’t have to sit in a conference hall listening to a few speakers who talk about this activity but take part in the act itself. I felt it was the moment to break the rules and to go further in the debate of what our profession is by actively participating in the performance.
DD: You are talking about creating a “moment”? What does the term “moment” mean to you?
LL: A moment is a strong emotional reaction in your body or your brain. A moment will change your vision, your perception of an object, of a vision, a strategy or a decision to take. It may change your life not immediately, but after a few years, one day you will recognise this moment.
Once I looked at the stars, I said to a friend who was with me, "My life is going to change," and it was true.
This was an important moment, but it also occurred while viewing an artist's work, meeting interesting people, walking in the city, or simply bringing people together, such as hopefully the IFFTI event.
Our lives are layered by moments that, in the end, form a book, a story, a career.
DD: Could you anticipate some of the highlights of the “MOMENTING THE MEMENTO” program?
LL: I think bringing interesting people together, such as writer and activist Ou Ning from China and anthropologist Michel Maffesoli from Paris, will be very enriching. I am already very happy with all the Skype interviews we have had with many interesting artists, academics, and teachers from Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. I am arranging blind dates with some Polimoda faculty members and the artists, and I believe this will create a great network for further discussions within our field. Finally, doing those ‘in situ’ actions in the Santa Croce Church, the Pazzi Chapel and Museum, and the National Library in Florence, and sharing them with all those friends working in education, is an incredible opportunity!
DD: Towards what we, as a collective, should aspire?
LL: We should be trained to have a free spirit to achieve a free future.
DD: Towards what fashion creatives should aspire?
LL: Fashion creatives should aspire to interesting and surprising beauty.
DD: Towards what an individual should aspire?
LL: Learn to develop vision; it is a sixth sense we can learn to develop.
Published at the Polimoda website during the IFFTI Conference
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