AltaRoma no longer exists

«AltaRoma no longer exists,» is how Tourism Councillor with responsibility for Fashion Alessandro Onorato summed up the situation of the Roman fashion week born in 2004 and apparently reaching its end of the line. However, the news, which came without any explanation whatsoever, was deepened by Silvia Venturini Fendi, AltaRoma's president since 2010: «What will definitely not be there is AltaRoma's summer fashion week. The Company is in liquidation, resolved in January by the Shareholders' Meeting, at the request of the Lazio Region, in order to start the constitution of the new Foundation that should, as was natural, inherit its assets and know-how according to the intentions repeatedly declared by the shareholders, even going so far as to manage the July fashion week.»

Fendi, interviewed by Artribune, pointed the finger at a lack of institutional collaboration as the biggest obstacle to a Society forced, according to the Roman designer, into a progressive activity of resistance and defense. Despite the proclamations of the new city council, which upon taking office had declared its intention to focus on the sector in order to bring Rome back to the center of the international fashion scene, last year's Valentino show seems only a distant memory. In its place, according to Corriere della Sera, an event created by former AltaRoma members and funded by the Chamber of Commerce will host emerging brands and international buyers from July 11-13 in the halls of Hadrian's Temple in Piazza di Pietra. In the fall, however, the city will host Forces of Fashion, the Vogue event scheduled for Oct. 21 in the capital city.

Established in 2004, AltaRoma has carried on the history of Roman fashion that began in the second half of the 1950s, when some designers (who were not yet called designers at the time) preferred Rome to Florence. While since the 1980s the city has hosted Donna Sotto Le Stelle, Rome's fashion week, it has always promoted the importance of craftsmanship and young talent and hosted designers such as Jean Paul Gaultier, while last year it featured a show on the Capitol with guests Pierpaolo Piccioli, Alessandro Michele and, of course, Silvia Venturini Fendi.