Self-taught for natural aptitude, creative by vocation and digital expert: let’s meet the creative mind behind the brand Peech, Amedeo Piccione
TBS: Dear Amedeo, your passion for fashion has always been the core of your creative path, when and why did you start being passionate about it? What’s your relationship with this universe?
AMEDEO: Since I was 10 years old, in 2000, I started collecting fashion. I bought for 8 years in a row (until my 18th birthday, when I moved to Milan) many and many issues of Vogue, Glamour, Amica, Elle, Marie-Claire. They’ve been the only books where I could study fashion since I was born in a part of the South of Sicily where fashion could be spread only through those glossy magazines. Today I live in that world that, at the time, I could only see in pictures and study.
I loved reading the fashion designers’ interviews, I watched all their collections and I started designing mannequins and dresses, following the trends of the time. The Dolce&Gabbana shapes, the embroidered Roberto Cavalli’s dresses, the bamboo accessories of Tom Ford for Gucci, the Gianfranco Ferrè’s weaves.
Fashion has always been to me an incredible story made of memories, iconic images and creativity.
Today, when I find myself working on a new project, I always start from the photography’s research linked to the past, to what I studied and to all the references that are inspirational for many of my fav designers. My mood boards always have a picture of Kate Moss or a Prada Adv campaign that I mix with my personal viewpoints of a colourful world.
TBS: Illustrator and Photoshop have not only been the tools with which you started communicating your world, but also the ones that turned your artistic heritage into a brand new digital one. Why this change of direction? What did this digital horizon give life to?
AMEDEO: My educational background taught me to freely draw, paint and colour on whichever support. Since I was 18 I had, for practical reasons, to neglect sheets of paper, even though they are still my biggest passion. Designing in a digital way is easier and faster, it gives me the possibility to make thousands of colours proofs, infinite shapes and drawings, optimizing times in a world that runs faster than the light. Today everything is so digital, social and technological. Even a simple sketch, a mannequin or a render has to be made in a short time and that’s why today I work like this.
TBS: In 2016 you gave life to PEECH, overwhelming in a literally cryptic way the concept of accessory. Where did you take the inspiration to design jewels and small leather goods based on what you defined “ free interpretation rebus”?
https://www.instagram.com/p/BgnogcQFEdD/
AMEDEO: In 2016, I felt the need to enclose all my creative skills in one project. I started designing medals, that no coincidence, are symbols of dedication and victory. I designed elements that have always had a meaning to me and I mixed them together. That’s how my rebus was born. Simple and colourful, that I applied on handmade necklaces, bracelets, rings. Not one but many messages to tell myself to me and to the other through images that represent me.
TBS: Your latest SS19 collection is called “Indian tales”, is it in some ways linked to some of your personal experiences? Which are the killer products of this coming season?
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnqfAlPlMuE/
AMEDEO: I love to read and not only about fashion. Reading makes me open my mind making me discover the world. The inspiration for this SS19 came after I read “Contes indiens” by Stèphane Mallarmè. This poet has never been to India, but he was able to tell in a few pages the essence of an adventurous trip made by a friend of him. In exactly the same way, I’ve never been in this country but I wanted to make an exercise in the Mallarmè style, closing my eyes and imagining to be there to translate those landscapes in the graphics that you can now see in my clothes.
I chose India because it’s a country that fascinates me a lot from a chromatic and decorative point of view: the combinations of colours, the details, the handcrafted embroideries among the different flavours, odours and spicy shades.
I synthesized this “Indian tale” of mine in 10 different and colourful prints that I used for many models of my collection like shirts, tops, skirts and mini dresses. My fav piece is the silk pleated skirt with the pattern INDIAN DREAM.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnqgkdHgpMC/
TBS: Your multifaceted soul made you often feel the need to reinvent yourself and experiment, which are the projects that you’d like to carry out in the future?
AMEDEO: I’ve been lucky to start working in the fashion industry when I was 18, working in a consultancy studio. I’ve never been to university like the majority of my peers. I think it’s good, though. I could never do certain things if I had to meet the exams deadlines or group work…
I had the chance to challenge myself day after day and express my creativity on many projects: collections, logos, packagings, fittings, graphics, textile’s prints, art direction, shootings…
My future project is Peech, that is already a dream come true that is growing in an important way. A project to which I dedicate pretty much time, that I hope will grow even more with enthusiasm, like a watercolour spot on a beautiful paper.