FOCUS ON CHICCA LUALDI - BEEQUEEN
Chicca Lualdi's grandfather was the founder of a leading interior design firm that has made this family known internationally. Certainly a stimulating environment where to grow up, thanks to continue encounters with other designers, architects and entrepreneurs who have enlivened the life of the small Chicca since her childhood, who, moreover, since little has been passionate about fashion. Eclectic studies have given her an overview of the design world: first the economy, branding and fashion marketing in Milan, then the fashion in New York. For about ten years Chicca Lualdi has worked with the major firms of the Made in Italy, such as Ittierre, Aeffe, Etro and Cruciani, experiences from which she has learned the importance of quality and that gradually gave her a complete and personal vision of the fashion product. The natural next step was the creation of her own brand dedicated to women’s prêt-à-porter.
The name BeeQueen was created by chance during a trip to NY. Walking through the streets of Soho, the designer came across, remaining impressed in the depiction of a queen bee, an evocative image of the concept of hard work in which she believes a lot. In 2009 Chicca Lualdi was the winner of the Fashion Incubator, sponsored by Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, presenting a collection with the ambitious purpose of revaluating the role of knitwear.
The Lombardy Region and the Bocconi University greeted this happy beginning by awarding her prize for Best Young Start Up Brand, while the buyers of major department stores (Saks NY, Harvey Nichols, Luisaviaroma) were very interested in buying the collections. Chicca Lualdi Fashion is influenced by some declared patterns: the architects and designers Caccia Dominioni, Citterio, Frank Lloyd Wright, Itoshi Abe for their linearity and pureness; the fashion designer Miuccia Prada for the sense of proportion and the flight from exhibitionism; the image of Lauren Bacall and Ingrid Bergman for the sense of elegance which expresses her woman, never vulgar, never out of place.
The spring / summer 2012 collection marked the official launch of the brand BeeQueen in the official calendar of the fashion shows of Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana: the cuts interrupt the dry and straight lines of sheath dresses, shirts and tube skirts, and create asymmetries, while in the evening look they creep into the geometric transparencies; a sense of absolute cleanliness is made through neutral colors like white, sky blue, beige and pale salmon. Whereas the elegance of the '60s is rather evoked in the collection of autumn/winter 2012-13 that sees merging different materials, the full-bodied nappé, and the romanticism of embroideries, of organza, of pink caramel. Everything is controlled with a sure hand, the forms are straight, ovate for coats or slightly flared; t-shirts or the inserts of fur or the embroideries of the evening dresses express all the richness of a woman who does not want to appear, but not necessarily passes unnoticed.