Creative dialogue, the essence of the MARNI vision, takes possession of the flagship store in via Montenapoleone 26 through the work imagined by the artist Flaminia Veronesi. The singular expression of Veronesi’s universe gives rise to a new interpretation of spaces, regenerated by her personal exhibition to offer a path in which to immerse oneself during the shopping experience.

Designed as a transversal hub where fashion, interior design and creativity converge, the Milan Montenapoleone flagship house houses a permanent ‘creativity caravan’, part of the architecture of the store, also occupied by the artist’s intervention and transformed into a new element, which envelops and leaves room for the visitor’s reflection.

A space that it occupies with all its imaginative power and transforms into a dreamlike itinerary, a succession and intertwining of paintings and sculptures, colors and creatures, which confronts us with the art of wonder and makes us fly with the imagination, transporting us into magic of the depths of the sea, face to face with the uniqueness of some beings who live underwater, free, enterprising and always well sheltered.

Entitled THE HERMITCRAB’S WUNDERSHELL, it is conceived as the wunderkammer of a family of hermit crabs, which collects shells and mythological iconography, hermit crab divinities that closely resemble us and who, with tender anthropomorphic features and sensational looks, are the protagonists of a monumental portrait gallery. A parade of fairytale or cartoon characters, with hybrid bodies and iridescent complexions, which flaunts provocative clothes. But can a dress be inhabited?

Shells are the works of art of the sea.
Hermit crabs inhabit them, impersonate and transport them.

Thus, brushstrokes on canvas, the words of Flaminia Veronesi sound like an ideal manifesto, a creed in which art is doubly linked to the wonderful design of marine nature, the symbolic significance and the enchanting allure of shells. Precious objects, collectibles, but also protective homes for vulnerable squatters such as hermit crabs, crustaceans without carapace, which perpetually claim and occupy them. And among the enveloping and enchanting vortexes and spirals of marine shells, which gradually bounce in all shapes and sizes, survival becomes the conquest of a self-made home, a snug and protective shelter-dress. A vulva, an architecture and a Socratic cave in which to preserve and regenerate, to be reborn indefinitely.

In welcoming the dimension conceived by Veronesi, the flagship store also presents a series of ready-to-wear creations, part of the spring/summer 2023 collection, which reveal prints created in collaboration with the artist, reflections of hand-painted designs. A fluid narration of flowers, angelic bodies, hands and mythological creatures animates dresses, trousers and skirts, spreading a sense of brutal fantasy in the collection. The Flaminia Veronesi exhibition will be open to the public from 22 February to 30 April 2023 and marks/blends a new MARNI JAM, the multidisciplinary program that reflects the brand’s desire to move within different intrinsically connected domains, which will further develop globally.

www.marni.com