The Designer & The Artist, Polimoda's new initiative for Pitti Uomo 109 Two guest lectures moderated by nss magazine
On the occasion of Pitti Uomo 109, Polimoda presented The Designer & The Artist, an activation that took the form of two guest lectures dedicated to the relationship between movement, identity, and creative transformation. Acting as a common thread between the two talks was the moderation by the editorial team of nss magazine, which shaped a cross-disciplinary dialogue between fashion, art, and architecture, far removed from promotional logic and closer to research and critical analysis. The Polimoda student community participated enthusiastically, asking questions related to the topics covered in the lectures.
The protagonists were Hed Mayner, Guest Designer of Pitti Uomo 109, and Marc Leschelier, architect, sculptor, and artist, and the author of the site-specific work Ancient/New Site, installed inside the Fortezza da Basso for the entire duration of the fair. Two figures operating in different fields, yet sharing the same tension toward form as a process, never as a definitive outcome.
On January 13rd Shifting Identities: Art, Movement, and the Self by Marc Leschelier took place. The lecture, which officially opened the Pitti Uomo 109 week at Polimoda, explored a practice that rejects the idea of completion. The artist’s work focuses on construction sites, raw materials, and temporary structures, treating intermediate phases of building as spaces charged with meaning. The aesthetics of the unfinished emerged as a tool to reflect on identity as a fluid entity, constantly redefined by movement and context. During the talk, Leschelier addressed themes such as architecture as an inherited choice, building as a performative act, architecture as a form of resistance, and gesture as a device of transformation, questioning the role of the artist today and the origins of his intervention Ancient/New Site.
The second lecture took place on January 15 at 10:00 am with The Moving Silhouette: Fashion as a Living Form by Hed Mayner, shifting the focus to the body and the garment. The lecture explored the silhouette as a dynamic structure, in which clothing does not impose a form but reacts to the movement of the wearer. Through generous volumes and fluid constructions, Mayner described a fashion practice that engages with the body rather than constraining it. In his talk, the designer expanded on the symbiotic relationship between garment and body, the distinction between real and perceived movement, obsession as part of the creative process, and the central role of tailoring and craftsmanship, as well as the influence of places such as Paris and Italy on the development of his visual language.
Although presented as two separate lectures, The Designer & The Artist functioned as a single conceptual project. Both encounters followed a shared trajectory: form as movement, identity as process, and creation as an open state. In this sense, the activation positioned itself within the Pitti Uomo calendar as a space for pause and reflection, designed for those seeking to step outside the dynamics of the fair and engage with the questions that lie behind objects.
The two lectures represented an open and participatory moment of exchange, helping to define a Pitti Uomo 109 season at Polimoda shaped by critical dialogue between fashion, art, and architecture, and reaffirming the school’s role as a place of research and cultural discussion.
