In Naples, a parade along the metro tracks

For the first time, a fashion show in the Chiaia station of Line 6 of the Naples Metro, a masterpiece of architecture and contemporary art, inaugurated in July and one of the six most beautiful in the world in 2024 according to the Prix Versailles, the international prize awarded annually at the Unesco headquarters in Paris. The fashion show presented Roberta Bacarelli's Fall-Winter 2024 collection, an event conceived as a site-specific performance.

The Neapolitan fashion designer and entrepreneur used the architectural space of the Chiaia station (at a depth of 35 metres) designed by Uberto Siola and with the artistic content of Peter Greenaway, to first show eighteen models in wedding dresses (in white, still, hieratic, almost sculptural); then, to the live music of the duo Marco Postiglione and Edo Faiella, the actual fashion show took place on the platform level. Here, thirty models wore 70 garments from the F/W 2024 'Urban underground' collection, walking along the quayside, with the audience seated on the opposite quay and in the middle of the tracks. No stage, no carpet or stage: the models became passengers for a day with their work bag, newspaper in hand and smartphone, while in the background sounds of underground music and the classic daily underground announcements punctuated an hour of catwalk. At the end, Roberta Bacarelli's greetings with her daughter Fabrizia Carola (and her two children) who works alongside her mother in the family business. Bacarelli creates the model, chooses the fabrics, and makes the prototype. It has 10 employees and a turnover of around one million euro and is no stranger to fashion shows with an innovative format: for example, the one in 1988 in Piazza dei Martiri, the one in which the models emerged from the frames of works of art and, when the war broke out in Ukraine, the one in which a Ukrainian model spoke about her homeland, arousing great emotion.

The Urban underground collection proposes, like Roberta Bacarelli's previous collections, pret a porter and tailored garments for a contemporary, feminine, feisty and dreamy woman. Leather garments with a bold soul, mixed with delicate details and ethereal evening dresses. Earthy colours, from green to dark brown, are mixed with gold and flashes of silver. Among the most interesting garments in the collection, sequin skirts designed for daytime are mixed with wool pullovers, creating looks that defy convention, while evening dresses are covered in sparkling Swarovski corals, bringing a fairytale allure to the catwalk. Denim is not missing, with total looks including suits and denim dresses.