Marni’s founder and creative director, Consuelo Castiglioni – above with H&M’s Margareta van den Bosch – mined some of her favorite pieces and the label’s predilection for prints to create the capsule collection, with styles for both men and women.

Well, with spring around the corner…and down the block, across the street and a bit to the left, the Marni x H&M collabo might arrive just in time. If the runways were any indication, the season will be popping with prints and combusting with color — but what do you say, dear readers: are you excited for some marked-down Marni? [WWD]

Were you girls a design team prior to studying at Ars Arpel School in Milan or did you meet there? As a team, did you always want to design shoes or was it something you fell into along the way?
We met when we both started work in the same week as junior designers for an Australian footwear group. We clicked immediately and it wasn’t long before we were planning our own label together. We’ve always both been interested in shoes and our passion and study drew us together. We both studied fashion design in Italy at different times and we’ve worked together now since 2003.

As designers, you maintain a “strong focus on the silhouette” of the shoes for your line tom gunn. Are you inspired by architecture in modern and ancient building? What about the architecture of nature like mountains and valleys?
We are inspired by everything around us. We collect images and photos on an inspiration board when we start to design a new collection and quite often use both modern and ancient architecture as inspiration as well as nature. We then zero in on the small details and take lines and shapes from the image to create the design lines of the shoes.

You source leathers and exotic skins from some of the top Italian tanneries. What about these materials make your shoes stand out from other lines? Has working with such high-end materials changed your perception of the footwear industry as a whole?
We absolutely love working with beautiful Italian leathers and exotic skins. The best quality materials make the shoe much more luxurious and comfortable. Snake and lizard leathers also have such a gorgeous texture that adds another dimension to the design.

There are so many footwear labels using low-end, cheap and plastic materials to keep the prices extremely low. This means you get what you pay for in terms of quality and comfort. Now we strive to use the best materials we can to ensure our shoes are luxurious, comfortable and the wearer will love them!

Do you look to forecasting trends for the colors and textures you use for your collections, or does the inspiration stem from inner creativity? Or is it a mix of both?
We build our colour palette from our images on our inspiration board. We love colour and leathers so we usually choose them first before we even start talking about design details for the collection. We don’t look at forecasting trends but design based on how we’re feeling and on what we would like to have in our shoe collections at that time! Of course, this means we need to wait six months for the shoe we’re coveting at the time, but it’s worth the wait!

Who and what inspires you? From nature to buildings, and blogs to other designers, where do you turn when a creativity block comes along?
Our design time is the most fun part of running the label so we usually come into it bursting with ideas and inspirations we’ve been dreaming about after the previous collection. There are a few amazing blogs including The Selby, Jak & Jil and Sea of Shoes we love looking at and some designers that inspire us are Dries Van Noten, Phoebe Philo of Celine and Consuelo Castiglioni of Marni.

It is so amazing tom gunn was awarded Footwear Designer of the Year at the 2010 2threads Fashion Awards. How has this changed the attention toward your brand?
Winning the 2Threads Footwear Designer of the Year was fantastic! It has certainly helped raise the profile of our brand and we have received many more inquiries and press.

You can learn more about tom gunn on the brand’s website.

Coke on the Runway? Yeah, you never see it but you know what’s happening backstage. Oh, wait, Coca Cola?!? Yeah, I guess that makes more sense.

It’s Fashion Week in Milan, Italy and yesterday instead of models with hour-glass figures, the models were shaped like Coke bottles. That’s because they WERE Coke bottles…

Coca-Cola Italy, in collaboration with The Abruzzo Charity Project enlisted 8 female designers to design sleeves for a limited amount of “Coca-Cola Light” bottles (Italy’s version of Diet Coke) to be available starting September 25th. Donatella Versace, Alberta Ferretti, Anna Molinari from Blumarine, Veronica Etro, Silvia Venturini Fendi, Marni’s Consuelo Castiglioni, Angela Missoni and Rossella Jardini at Moschino were the designers asked to participate, they said yes and the result is fabulous. 

The proceeds will be used by The Abruzzo Charity Project to help people/families affect by the devastating earthquake last year.

They kicked off the project at Fashion Week on Friday by showing the designs on the runway in the form of Coke bottles walking the runway…great idea.

“Moschino”

“Missoni”

“Marni”

“Fendi”

“Etro”

“Alberta Ferretti”

“Blumarine” (My favorite of the designs)

“Donatella Versace”

Last year at the exact same time, Coca-Cola asked Roberto Cavalli to design bottles featuring his staple animal spots and stripes and it was very successful. This was the amazing result:

Oh how I wish these bottles were available here in the US. I may have to plan a trip back to my family’s homeland, see some relatives and enjoy a designer bottle of soda…

Kisses Bitches…

Glamour Whore…xoxo

LINK LOVE: http://www.cultindie.com/xn/detail/2394740:BlogPost:80872