AMaViS is so representative of the best Italian style, sharing with many other great designers and artisanal workshops birth in a rural town, hidden away from the bustle of the large cities.
AMaViS is known through the wonders of social media, word of mouth, fashion shows and web. AMaViS is very special as it combines the elements of Haute Couture with the ‘banality’ of recycling – in fact it is the finest definition of Upcycling. Everything that AMaViS creates uses recycled materials that all have a vastly greater value after the injection of the creative spirit of Ada Maria Vittoria Santarelli, the founder and dreamer of all that is AMaViS.
To meet Mavi, as she prefers to be known, you need to travel below the lake of Nemi in the Castelli Romani to Genzano. For us it was a cold winter’s evening just after Christmas, when we found Mavi, surrounded by the ‘remnants’ of a successful Christmas season at the top of Via Italo Belardi, well away from the Xmas lights of the main Genzano town.
Yet Mavi drew from her array of gowns a wedding dress created from old sheets for a German bride who had travelled to Genzano to select her outfit. The best is worth searching for.
Mavi circled her collection, and presented first her original award winning creation, a full length gown, arrayed with automotive seat belts, upcycled with a fine sense of design perspective – and possibly for the lady a safe way of keeping her man? Another AMaViS marvel is the cocktail dress created from unspoilt men’s ties – great fashion, fantastic colour balance, and sexy.
Mavi presents the motto of her collection ‘Give me a second chance’ on t-shirts of upcycled cotton. But enough of the AmaViS collection for now, as we will enjoy writing separately about more ’tales of mens’ shirts’ – in a ‘story of downunder’.
Who is Ada Maria Vittoria Santarelli and what forces made her Mavi?
A child of Rome, Ada Maria’s childhood was spent in the pleasure of creating dolls’ clothes and then her own fashions, wherever her family’s interests took her. She was required to create a business career, despite her passion for fashion. So it is not surprising that she finished up as a manager in Haute Couture.
Nevertheless her soul was in creation, not management, and her leaning has always been to sustainability. Given the opportunity she leapt into the abyss of AMaViS, a name formed in her childhood, and adopted the name Mavi from that.
Follow AMaViS and Mavi, wherever they go. It will certainly be a cycle upwards.
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