CHOCOLATE MEETS FASHION

For years, many craftsmen adorned fashion shows with models that strut the catwalk wearing clothes made by maestro pastry chefs. Now, some high fashion houses have decided to start collaborations with celebrity chocolatiers to create luxury lines of pralines and candies. Then again, fashion and pastry arts both seek taste and try to satisfy the sensorial perceptions. The pastry arts can especially be considered a decorative art that is capable of uniting beauty with taste. Therefore, it isn’t a surprise that the Florentine fashion house Salvatore Ferragamo presented a series of partnerships for pop-up events in February and March in collaboration with the pastry and food service world to celebrate its new monogram, Gancini. If in London on March 13 a multisensorial cocktail event was organized at the iconic Italian Lina Stores, in France, it was decided to let fashion and chocolate meet.

Haute couture

In France, Salvatore Ferragamo undersigned a sweet collaboration with the pastry chef Sébastien Gaudard. The famous Italian luxury fashion company approached the pastry arts on the suggestion of the new artistic director, Paul Andrew; that is, in Paris for three weeks in the windows of Sébastien Gaudard, the “little prince of French patisserie”, known for wanting to restore to the past the splendor of the present. In fact, in his offerings, he brought alive traditional pastries, offering madeleines and the childhood memories of Proust.
Guadard created for Ferragamo a collection of chocolates that reinterprets the shape of the Gancini monogram, the symbol of the brand. It is based on a double-hooked closure inspired by the ironwork on the side walls of the Palazzo Spini Feroni, the historical headquarters of Ferragamo in Florence. Two recipes were created to give life to the visual codes of the Italian brand: a hazelnut- gianduja enriched with a delicate candied lemon, and a toasted almond- gianduja with coffee pieces. The chocolates are enclosed and presented in elegant packaging which recall the Gancini monogram.