Moving to Italy and starting from scratch is hard. Moving to Italy and leaving behind a huge community of artists and events and openings and opportunities is harder. Moving to Italy and saying NO to the CHICAGO ARTIST PROJECT when they accept you as an artist becuase you are living on the other side of the planet is also difficult.
When I left Toronto I had just started the self portrait series and only completed about 5 pieces, none of which I could take with me because they were all too heavy. Living in a bedroom in Milan and working as a waitress for 7 days a week was not the best environment for creating and thinking about art and the only thing I made during that time was the occasional drink.
When I moved to Bologna I started working with Marco's family. His father, Lorenzo Vaccari, started TES about 10 year's ago. Before that the company was called D and D and was Marco's grandmother. For a North American, the situation was very strange, like meeting the real
life Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
They make belts. Alligator, python, lizard OH MY!!! All kinds of exotic belts. And they are one of the best companies in the world. Ok first I want to talk about TES. TES is like a family. Aside from the fact that Marco works under his dad as the administrator, running the banks and business side but also working manually every now and then to get a feel for the craft. Then there is his mom, Deanna, who has been cutting alligator for belts she she was like ..... I think able to stand above a table. She is amazing and so fast, taught by her mother and her father who started the company. Then there is La Claudia, Marco's aunt, who has been working at TES for over 20 or maybe 30 years. She is an expert in sewing, but also dying to go on her pension at almost 60 year's old.
Then there is La Oletta...L'Oletta ( I thought her name was loletta instead of Oletta for like 5 months because here they say La Angela, La Deanna, La Claudia, using the article). There is La Monica, La Nicoletta, La .... la la la .... you get the picture. All in all there are something like 12 of us. And then there's Lorenzo.
When Lorenzo married Deanna he had no idea how to make an alligator belt. He had grown up in the middle of no where country land, went to the military and returned to work at Baca, one of the largest meat distributers in Italy at the time, in his small town. His dad worked there as a butcher and he packaged meat and eventually did sales. Let’s just say not exactly the typical upbringing of one of the most important belt artisans in the world.
He’s a big kid, whose office is filled with toys and books and crayons and markers. Who is an expert in food (with the stomach to match), so well verse in wine and all things gourmet that he’s called upon by friends opening restaurants for consultations. A man of many passions…..pens, work knives, matches, horses, mooses, art, anything well made….he has a woman’s delicate appreciation for everything.
Anyway, let’s just say that he turned a very small mom and pop shop into an important Bottega of the art alligator belt object.
Sometimes I can believe how long they work on every belt. Shining the buckle and the strap for 10 minutes each before shipping. Testing for days new construction methods for new materials to ensure they get the best result. Hand sewing or hand dying the strap.
Having already worked in a million and one different managerial, office admin, marketing and organization jobs, I was like nothing TES had ever seen before. I started going into the office with Marco when I first moved to Bologna because I had nothing else to do. I had a babysitting gig that wasn’t quite working out with Lara the AuPair nightmare, so I thought I could help out filing. After a few weeks I was managing all of the TES clients, I had set up all sorts of organizational systems and I was working on big plans and big projects.
The only thing I wasn’t doing was making art, one of the biggest things that was bringing me down with my new life in Italy. Then one day Lorenzo started insisting that if I had an idea I should talk to him about it.
The art of the Belt.
Belts are for me an easy thing to get passionate about. In my opinion they can make or break your entire wardrobe. And cheapness is obvious….. unfortunately. I can’t say I have the best personal collection of belts in the world. I likes what I likes, but it isn’t the maximum of quality. After working for 1 day at TES I couldn’t bring myself to wear any of the belts I had at home to work, because in contract to the ones we made at TES they were all so awful.
So I started to design…..for me. Early in the morning, late at night, at lunch. Instead of eating I’d stay at the workshop pulling out all of our buckles, scavenging through the piles of skins and leathers looking for interesting colors or combinations, reading magazings, thinking about my outfits and who I could become with the right belt, going through Lorenzo’s boxes of trinkets and toys……let me tell you the Italians thought I was completely insane for not taking a lunch of two hours everyday. I was so North American with my “working lunches”. After 5 months I had something like 60 designs and I presented them to Lorenzo.
AND HE MADE THEM. Not all of them. There were some that were technically impossible, and he criticized me for my lack of practical technical experience. And then there were some that just didn’t get done because they took too much time away from the thousands of orders they had to ship for the other TES clients. But about 15 in total designs were made.
PLUS I designed a series of about 30 bracelets - thick adjustable bangle type of bracelets smoothly covered in alligator or python in the most amazing colors.
We presented the pre-collection at WHITE in Milan in September 2009, then a few more pieces a week ago at Pitti Uomo in Firenze, but in two weeks we’ve been invited to Paris to present the collection at one of the most important chain boutiques of Paris.
Fingers crossed.
Right now all products can be ordered directly from TES or via our store partners in Europe (mainly Hannes B Boutique in Switzerland.
I’ve already started working on the next collection. A little more classic but more inventive with a series of buckles that I’m designing for launch in the fall.
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