benedetta cresta

Grey Sheep

benedetta.cresta

Location

Nusco / italy

University

Polimoda

Graduation year

2021

Main Manufacturing Countries

italy

Contact

Benedetta Cresta is my name, born in 1997, I come from a small village in Irpinia, in Campania. Here dreams always seem too big.
I graduated in fashion design at the academy of fine arts in Naples, with full marks 110 and honors, but feeling tight, I decided to move to Florence and attend the master's degree in collection design at Polimoda, thanks a scholarship. in Florence I worked as a producer and stylist for both commercial and editorial shootings for the collective Fattura Studio. After spending my year in Polimoda, I have started to understand my own aesthetic. I created the first collection that really represents me as a designer. The created collection is available to order, to avoid wasting any fabric. There is also the possibility of having a garment made with the customer’s measurements, this too was handed down to me by my mother. As I’m working on my next collection, I’m challenging myself a lot, asking questions about how to improve myself and best create my next world.
I have recently worked as a prototype designer for an emerging brand based in Milan, Lisa Von Tang. After this experience I continued on working for others brand such as Defaience, Ayten Alkhayat ecc.
In the meanwhile I’m also working as freelance stylist and seamstress on Gucci set.
Passionate about fashion since I was a child. There is no starting point, I don't remember when I decided to want to be a designer, or when I only thought about that.
I've lived in the tailoring field thanks to the family atelier, where I've worked as designer and dressmaker since I was 14yo. I also have excellent practical skills in prototyping and garment finishing. I am a very organized person and attentive to details. I always want to increase my skills. Taking into consideration my previous experience, I'm aware of fashion trends, colour schemes as well as art, design and fashion history.
I think inspiration can come from everywhere. Living life and being aware of what surrounds us, observing every detail: of a painting, a dress, a sculpture or a building. I try to create my own vision of the world. By accumulating images and ways of living which then come to life through design. I believe that the best thing is to “learn” from the environments that are most hostile to us, allowing more unexpected things to enter our world. Having grown up in the atelier since I was a child, I have had the opportunity to experiment and I believe that this is my favourite way of getting inspired – letting what I have unconsciously absorbed reflect into new shapes and volumes through a rectangle or meters of fabric draped over the mannequin. For me, it’s like a ritual.

Latest Collection

AGORAPHOBIA

Agoraphobia (from the Greek: square and: fear, etymologically "fear of the square") is the feeling of fear or serious discomfort that a subject feels when he finds himself in unfamiliar environments or in any case in large open or crowded spaces, fearing of not being able to control the situation. This leads him to feel the need for an immediate escape route to a place he considers safer.
With this collection I wanted to analyze this feeling in a conceptual way. People’s inability to go outside their comfort zone, that is the place where we feel safe but also the place that prevents us from growing.
AGORAFOBIA analyzes the ambiguity of stereotypes imposed by society. The uniform, like the talieur, our safe place, is overturned to give life to shapes that envelop the body in a sinuous way.
Each piece of the collection starts from a basic patter, that is opened and transformed, from a one kind piece of fabric, to create volumes going outside our standard silhouette, being part of theme.
The ambiguity of this collection starts from the volume, that could be either something that goes outside the safe place and the representation of the safe place itself, with draped shape inspired by the work of Patty Carroll.
Her images “symbolize the psychological states of women […] by showing them hidden behind, and intertwined with, visually stunning domestic scenes.”
Balance is created with volumes that aim not to hide the body but to enhance it
The world of Hellenistic art, whose sculptures are a source of inspiration, also influenced the development of garments. Their marble seems soft, inspire the most voluminous dresses, with parts that perfectly follow the silhouette and others that deform it.