A coffee with Mirella - The Duke and the Fashion

The exhibition “DAVID BOWIE the PASSENGER. By Andrew Kent "is an Italian premiere.
A retrospective full of details and reconstructions that tell the extraordinary adventure of Bowie, after his return to Europe in the mid-70s.
At the Arcimboldi Theater in Milan, from April 2nd to June 22nd.

Between 1975 and 1976, Bowie decides to leave behind the American experience, culminating in the success of an LP like Youhg Americans and the shooting of the film "The Man Who Fell to Earth", to return to his native Europe and re-establish his career.
He runs away from Los Angeles, after trying to survive between esotericism, black magic and cocaine. The latter was making him implode at the very height of his American success and Bowie was seeking solace in "Goodbye to Berlin", the novel by Christopher Isherwood set during the Weimar Republic, in his work and in the music of the Kraftwerks. It is these important factors that prompt Bowie to envision his return to Europe.

Berlin was the chosen city, although in London, his hometown, there were signs of another impending revolution: Punk.

The former capital of the Third Reich could not fail to exert a discreet charm on Bowie also because of the wall that divided two worlds: East and West, Capitalism and Communism.

During the promotional tour of his latest album, Stationto Station, Bowie had become "The Thin White Duke": elegant, sophisticated, pale and excessively hollow in the face, crooner with white shirt, waistcoat and black trousers.

An antistyle par excellence that was born from the unconventional mind of an artist who had expanded the boundaries of pop, introducing new elements such as performances, stage costumes that would influence fashion, literature and a previously unknown theatricality in that context.
The photographs and testimonies of AndrewKent that make up this exhibition tell of that excited period.

Not only stage photos, then, but also testimonies of that frantic travel to reach those places where most ordinary people could not go, such as the Soviet Bloc.

Bowie had already visited Moscow in 1973, but during a break in the European segment of the Isol tourguide, the StationtoStation promotional tour, he announces to his entourage that he wants to reach the Russian capital again.

AndrewKent will be in charge of visas to enter the Soviet Union.

The photographs included in the exhibition itinerary remain from that short stay. These are snapshots and some photos posed in front of the Kremlin or the Mausoleum, a unique moment in which the hunger for omniscience that fed Bowie's mind was preparing him for Low, Heroes and Lodger: The Berlin Trilogy.

In Berlin Bowie, together with IggyPop, wrote and recorded some of his most important and influential albums, in an attempt to change the world and his world.

“David Bowie is a true icon, now more relevant than ever in modern and popular culture. His radical innovations in music, theater, fashion and style still echo today in the design and visual culture sector and continue to inspire artists and designers from all over the world ”. (Martin Roth, director of the V & A-Victoria & Albert museum)

David Bowie was the protagonist of a retrospective, sponsored by Gucci, to celebrate not only his musical talent, but for his ability to make and dictate fashion, in London, at the V & A-Victoria & Albert Museum, from 23 March to 18 July of 2013.

More than 300 objects were exhibited to retrace the career and history of the eclectic singer (stage costumes - some made by him himself -, handwritten texts, photographs but also works of art). Also exhibited were the coat made by Bowie and Alexander McQueen (which appeared on the cover of Earthling in 1977), but also the dress by Ziggy Stardust (1972) designed by Freddie Burretti and the creations by Kansai Yamamoto for the Aladdin Sane tour (1973).

So Bowie was not only a singer and a musician, he was also a stylist, because he designed his costumes by launching fashions and above all he shaped his image of him, transforming it into an instrument tuned to his songs. Here it is clarified why Gucci has decided to take part in the exhibition.