Canali’s ‘Under the Surface’ Explores Art, Craftsmanship, and Tailoring

As the pluses and minuses of AI continue to be debated, the significance of human craftsmanship becomes even more important.

At least that’s what the Canali family believes, as evidenced by their “Under the Surface” project.

In an unconventional way to showcase the meticulous attention to tailoring detail it takes to create a Canali jacket, the family behind the Italian men’s luxury brand created an international project that highlighted the similarities between art and apparel design.

For “Under the Surface — Shaping the Unseen,” Canali commissioned four artists from around the world to explore the sartorial steps it takes to make a jacket by interpreting it through their artwork. The artists were Diego Perrone in Italy, who works in glass; sculptor and ceramic artist Brian Rochefort in the United States; bamboo weaver Lihuai Qian in China, and Thukral & Tagra in India, who worked in brass. Although each uses a different medium, they all managed to convey the processes needed to give form to matter.

“We wanted to make sure that people got to know the talent, devotion and the time that is required and the importance of the human factor in an era where all the talk is about the importance of artificial intelligence,” said Stefano Canali, president and chief executive officer of Canali. “Human beings will never be taken over by machines. We believe that creativity will never belong to machines in any manner. People and human beings will always have wonderful ideas and be able to turn creativity into something substantial.”

He added that the time required to create the artworks is “not in sync with the times we live in where everything must be immediate. But if you want to end up with something qualitative, something substantial, time is highly required.”

That was evident on Wednesday night at the Glasshouse Chelsea in the Chelsea Arts Tower in New York, where Rochefort’s work was on display alongside Canali jackets. The sculptor created original works in glazed ceramic that were inspired by the craters, coral formations and mineral deposits he discovered on his travels in the Galápagos, the Serengeti and Latin America. Each sculpture was developed through successive layers of clay that were fired repeatedly as glazes to create texture and shape.

Rochefort said his “heavily layered” pieces were inspired by the birds, flowers, mountains and craters he found on his trips. “I absorbed myself in the environment, came back to my studio and made these abstract representations — more like memories of these landscapes,” he said.

Rochefort, who has also worked with Berluti and Dries Van Noten, said that while his work and that of Canali are “dramatically different,” there are parallels between the layering and development of the materials. And he also included some “Canali green” in one of the pieces exhibited in New York.

That piece and many others will be exhibited in a solo show he’s preparing for the Sean Kelly Gallery early next year, Rochefort said.

The New York event was one of “four different chapters” Canali created for “Under the Surface.” The first was held in Beijing, the second in New York, with Milan slated for Nov. 10 and Mumbai on Nov. 28.

“The ultimate goal we wanted to pursue with this project was to make sure that people get to know the talent, the difficulties, the importance of human factor behind whatever you see in front of you, whether it’s an artwork or a jacket by Canali,” he explained.

Canali added that while people may be attracted initially to a jacket’s color, fabric or texture, if they look more closely, they can start to appreciate the precision and craftsmanship it takes to create each piece. “So we wanted to create some parallels with the four different artists.”

He said the creative process in general consists of three steps. First is a creative idea; second is the acquisition of the materials to give substance to that idea. “And last, and certainly not least, is the ability to execute the idea together with the materials into something substantial that is pretty much consistent with the original idea.”

Canali said that with the exception of Milan, where the exhibition will be open to the public for one day, the events in the other cities were just for media, retailers, influencers and friends of the brand. In New York, that included Canali global ambassador Ethan Hawke.

But for those unable to attend, the project was shot on photo and video by Italian artist and filmmaker Yuri Ancarani.