After the success of the 2022 edition, the Consulate of Italy in Detroit and the Dante Alighieri Society of Michigan are taking the second edition of their “LoveITDetroit” project to the Detroit Month of Design. This year, the project won the first “City of Italian Creativity in the World” call for tenders from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
Based in Detroit, the exhibition will be open to the public and available from 1 to 30 September. The installation will also feature 12 in-person events (focusing on sectors ranging from sustainable mobility to fashion, from aerospace to wine, from opera to cinema), with prominent speakers both local and from Italy.
The opening day will see the launch of the Detroit Month of Design, an annual festival dedicated to design in Detroit, the only UNESCO City of Design in the United States. For the occasion, the Consulate of Italy in Detroit, represented by Consul Allegra Baistrocchi, has once again entrusted Ludovica Serafini and Roberto Palomba, as Ambassadors of Italian Design in the World and catalysts of many international projects, with the role of designers and curators of the exhibition.
In the 2023 edition, LoveITDetroit will once again aim to attract the attention of the international public by elevating and enhancing the Made in Italy vision. In particular, the Detroit installation will highlight how Italian companies have embarked on a journey towards sustainability, integrating this approach with the essence of Made in Italy. The spaces will therefore be filled with stories of Italian creativity and sustainability – from the wooden sculptures of the Verginer (Willy, Matthias and Christian) to the pieces of glass master Chiara Taiariol; from the textile materials of virtuous realities such as Dolcevita, Orange Fiber and Rada, obtained from recycled materials (recycled cotton, orange waste and plastic collected from the oceans) to the looks of fashion designer Stella Jean (who combines sustainability with attention to social justice issues).
The opening evening will be dedicated to the ecological transition of Kartell, which will celebrate the 20th anniversary of Phillipe Starck’s “Louis Ghost” chair (60% less polluting today than in its initial version) and the “Rechair” model (completely made with recycled Illy capsules).
Once again this year, the event will be hosted in parallel in the dedicated metaverse with a highly engaging exhibition in which the virtual and real worlds will dialogue. Version 3.0 of the LoveITDetroit metaspace will show (after the Made in Italy 1.0 version and the 2.0 version of the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome exhibition) Fashion Panorama – The Italian New Wave, a project of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, curated by Vogue Italia. The aim of the initiative is to tell the story of contemporary Italian fashion through the vision and work of 10 brands – ACT N°1, Gisèle Claudia Ntsama, Cormio, Familiar Lexicon, Magliano, Marco Rambaldi, Medea, Panconesi, Niccolò Pasqualetti, SSHEENA – which, while reshaping artisanal tradition in a new way and with innovative languages and methods, have been able to maintain a strong and integrated relationship with other Italian cultural and creative industries and with original trends and themes dear to contemporary society.
Thanks to MIGreenPower by DTE Energy, to which Bedrock (owner of the space where LoveITDetroit will take place) also participates, 100% of the electricity consumption (for the installation, the in-person events and the metaverse servers) for the entire month of September will derive from renewable energy sources produced in Michigan, thus making the event carbon neutral.
In the words of Consul Baistrocchi: “LoveITDetroit will once again become an international showcase for Italian excellence, while also helping to spread the importance of a sustainable approach in the creative industry and to be inspired by Italy’s best practices, integrating tradition and craftsmanship with technology and innovation.”