Lunch with designer Giuditta Tanzi

I met Giuditta Tanzi in the bar where she goes to eat practically every day near the studio where she is working on her project: Garbage Core. Giuditta has the name and looks of an Italian actress from the 1930s. Except for the fact that there is no posing in what she does, but everything appears coherent and natural, a direct extension of her taste and personality. Her story and that of her brand, even if she doesn’t like to call it that, are the natural evolution of an extremely contemporary taste, but with almost Renaissance echoes. It’s a project out of fashion, focused on the aesthetics of “rubbish”, research that Giuditta has been working on since her university days and which she has deepened by giving it her personal interpretation. Unique garments and limited series are in this way created which have always different details, because the fabrics are selected from dead stocks or obtained from garments bought in street markets and charity shops.
FF

When was Garbage Core launched?
GT

I founded it in 2019. The story actually began a little earlier, in the sense that the idea in itself of the brand, which then changed and evolved, was my thesis project at university, from the concept of using second-hand clothes. I didn’t have the idea of launching the brand at that time, also because I realised how difficult it would be and that it required a certain type of structure. In my head it was a bit vague, and then immediately after university I began to work, do internships...
FF

The wonderful world of work experience in fashion. What a nightmare!
GT

The classic training process. I had a bit of experience, but after a little over a year I was already depressed with the situation. I understood almost immediately that I probably wasn’t really cut out for continuing along that path.
FF

It is not a given to become aware of such a thing. What did you do then?
GT

Essentially, at a certain point I said to myself: I think I’d prefer a part-time X job which I could put up with, and at the same time develop my ideas as they come and see what happens. Madness, if I think about it today. To say, therefore, that I decided to found Garbage Core is a bit exaggerated. While I was working part-time in a cannabis shop, in my free time I was at home developing my creations, but without the idea of having a brand, in its more authoritative and institutional definition.

FF

In effect, the perception that one has of Garbage Core is more of a project in progress that could change in a thousand ways and have also unpredictable outcomes...
GT

Yes, today obviously the perception is closer to that of a brand, but it’s always an art of getting by. There has never been a structure behind it; there have never been any funds. In the end it’s a lot about that too. Its development has been very fluid, uniform and dependent on the things that happened and on the direction it was going at that particular moment.
FF

Tell me something about you before Garbage Core was a possibility. Where did you grow up?
GT

I was born in Parma and until I was 11, I lived with my family – my father, mother and brother – in the city. Then, at a certain point they got fed up and we moved to the country, in the lower Parma area, the land of fog and cold meats. My grandparents, Sicilians, also lived nearby. Half of the family is from Parma and half are all Sicilian. I went to middle and high school there. The high school was an experimental institute, specializing in languages and tourism. Even that was terrible, in the sense that I totally hated it. I was, however, slowly acquiring some passions that had nothing to do with my studies. In actual fact I really liked taking photographs; I was addicted to Tumblr at the time. In the end I decided to study fashion, a bit because my aunt had always worked in advertising; she worked in Mondadori, so I often went to her office and found hundreds of magazines to browse through. What’s more, my grandmother had always been a seamstress. So, I started to gradually approach that world. She taught me to sew, but I also commissioned her to modify some things; we did it together.
FF

Where did you study in Milan?
GT

In NABA. It’s a very free school. It’s a bit like an artistic high school but in the form of a university, because they give you lots of space for creativity and they also train you technically. I more or less practically learned everything there.
FF

You then finished your course in NABA and did your thesis project, Garbage Core. Why this name?
GT

There’s actually a long explanation. [Laughter]
FF

Go on, I love long explanations.
GT

Practically, at that time I had noted that a look derived from photographing abandoned objects in the street was spreading on the social networks, as if they were something cool. So, I asked myself: why does something we’ve thrown away, which is essentially something discarded, a piece of rubbish, become cool? It should be the opposite, because it’s trash. I then began to do some research on the Instagram profiles that published this type of photo, finding some things which were really interesting. Through selecting them and contacting them, a sort of connection was made with certain threads of contemporary art. In the end the idea was not “I want to do upcycling”, because I didn’t even know what upcycling, or sustainable, etc. meant. It was more transforming a concept that was found on Instagram – that I made up a bit – and in art, in clothes. There are lots of contemporary artists, like Alexandra Bircken, that use discarded objects, day-to-day objects to create assemblage, installations. This was what pushed me towards Garbage Core. But before arriving, I wanted to find a reference in fashion, which had followed that type of path and at the beginning I wasn’t able to find much. Then a world opened up for me when I discovered Susan Cianciolo, who in the 1990s had a brand that made all the clothes in that way, obtained from used clothes, with an aesthetic DIY. She was the door to implementing an idea. She gave form to what I had in mind and persuaded me to continue.
FF

So you decided to launch this project, and in the meantime, you worked part-time... But when did you understand that what you had in your hands could grow and become what it is today?
GT

I began to understand when I made a capsule collection... at the beginning I made pieces that were not even whole looks. They were only tops or dresses... I didn’t think in terms of collections. What I initially had in mind to do was, in fact, sell them online. I had a very DIY website made and already had a few followers on Instagram. Then I did the first drop, communicating the time and day on my profile. There were 15 pieces and I sold them in two days. So that’s where the excitement started. I began to work with businesses, such as Café Forgot in New York, which opened up for me many doors with regards to visibility. Especially abroad. Now my main markets are the United States and Japan.

FF

How does the production of a capsule or collection usually function?
GT

It all begins with research in the street markets. Then I have the places I always go to: large charity shops, also linked to the Church, which open once week and have an unimaginable quantity of things and also of quality because they are all donations. While before the last collection I had always worked one hundred percent with used clothes and I never repeated the pieces, in the next one I wanted to try a further step. I wanted the new collection to have its own small production without losing sight of Garbage Core’s DNA, so I found some stocks of sweaters that allowed me some repetition “in series” while maintaining unique details for each garment, like insides, for example, which at the moment I make with shirts.
FF

However, a sweater does not always derive from a sweater, on the contrary. You only use the fabric.
GT

Exactly. We make paper patterns and then we cut the patterns on the clothes. The fabrics are always leftovers of companies, so we have limited quantities and try to make pieces that perhaps have a fabric base which is the same for all, plus a series of details that instead change for every piece. We use everything, even curtains, table cloths, etc.
FF

This is a bit the direction all brands are taking that are starting out today, I believe it’s physiological, given the historic moment we’re living in. It’s interesting, however, to understand what could be the evolution.
GT

I’m also trying to understand...
FF

How many of you are there at the moment?
GT

Two. Myself and Roberto Nizzari. It’s actually quite complicated. Luckily, we know how to do many things and we do nearly everything ourselves, because the thing that has changed is that before I sewed everything, while now, both to allow for a greater quantity of garments and a greater quality, we have commissioned them to seamstresses. Because obviously, no matter how good I could be at sewing, a piece is never as good as when done by a seamstress. In the end, therefore, now we do the paper patterns, the prototypes internally, and then the sample we have done externally. And given that we work a lot with a mix of things, we also prepare the fabrics – which are often patchworks or with particular applications – before they are cut.
FF

With such a special project, how far do you manage to follow a seasonality to fit in with the standard fashion calendar?
GT

It’s a bit complicated. And also limiting. If, however, you want to present something during Fashion Week you need to follow a time schedule. You know that you necessarily have to finish things by a certain date. You are in the middle of something called Spring Summer or Fall Winter, so whoever wants to get to know us expects that, more or less.
FF

Obviously. Perhaps not so much the journalists, but most of all the buyers.
GT

Yes. In fact, the main problem in my opinion is always the retail sector. If you work with shops, unless you are a gigantic brand, you can’t launch collections when you want, because the sale campaigns have pre-established periods of the year and you have to follow them. In actual fact, now is time of experimentation to see if effectively we are able to have a structure in this sense, even if it’s not really my forte. We’ll see how it goes.
FF

Have you thought of simply having your own shop?
GT

Yes. I would like that very much. Even a studio on the street. And then, who knows if being able to see things directly would work in a city like Milan.
FF

It would be an interesting experiment in my opinion. You could, however make your sales online, which has no limits.
GT

Certainly. And then it would become a meeting place.
FF

Tell me, however, about the future. You began with a part-time job while you developed your project. Now Garbage Core is your life. And after? What do you imagine?
GT

Well, I will start teaching in Naba. Then I have to say that sometimes I think about taking a step backwards, about returning to the origins of the project and not caring about how the system works. To begin to make only unique pieces and sell them directly on the website and stop. I’ve always thought that the thing that can make the difference in certain projects is when you make something knowing how it’s really done. This too gives you a stylistic signature.