I’m still learning”

Michelangelo

 

September has arrived and here we are: Autumn is on our doorstep and schools have started again.

I’ve always had a good relationship with studies, classrooms and tests, but now I’ve come to the realisation that experience has been my real schooling. I think I’ve learned more and better from people than from books over the years (this doesn’t belittle the joy of reading for pleasure: I’m talking about school textbooks, about educational institutions rather than the personal choice of a good book).

Over the years I’ve learned who my real teachers are; those who have transferred their lasting and priceless knowledge. I’ve learned from my father, from tailors, from the textile manufacturers, from those who in this specific field have never stopped making a unique and genuine contribution, and who have made of their profession not just a passion but an art form. From these people I’ve learned the tools of the trade and I’ve treasured these. They’ve taught me the meaning of a profession carried out with enthusiasm, dedication and responsibility. And all the teachings I’ve absorbed from these people have become part of me and my work, an immeasurable heritage.

I consider this cultural baggage to be an inheritance, a suitcase full of ideas, lessons, concepts and core beliefs that have increased and continued to grow with me. I now feel the need to do that which my masters did with me: to pass on this knowledge and teach others what I’ve learned. To give back learnings is also, and above all, a wealth: to explain how to take measurements, to show the difference in kinds of fabrics, to demonstrate how colours, items and accessories are combined and matched. To ensure that this knowledge isn’t lost but becomes at the very least an asset and a skillset. All that I’ve learned goes beyond the basic job that I do: it’s enriched by ability, method and principles that have become a life philosophy, a modus vivendi.

That’s how I want to kick off this autumn: with the desire to start something new, ready for a new season that in its very roots brings me to convey, to make of my work a school; aware of the fact that in life one never ceases to learn something new, and that I for one will never stop being a student of life.

Fun facts

The word school originates from the Latin word scola, which in turn has roots in the Greek word σχολή (scholè), which means leisure, free time. School was therefore a moment of the day in which it was considered permissible (if not advisable) to switch off from the humdrum of daily life to dedicate time to the more pleasurable activities of the mind, therefore to study, which was initially a prerogative of the privileged few.

The word slowly began to evolve and refer to the places in which the wise would gather during their free time to quibble about the more important philosophical and scientific questions, and from this emerged the practice of listening to them to absorb some of their teachings.