Paolo Mattia Maria Elena
Paolo Mattia Maria Elena is a project created and developed by Mattia Cocci, an Italian photographer and art director. This is a graduation thesis in Fashion Art Direction at Polimoda that offers visual research about a personal interpretation of the book Skin-Ego written by Didier Anzieu, a French psychoanalyst. Mattia reflects on his relationship with his two siblings from the prism of interconnectedness and the process of forming owned identities leading to a separation of the subjects on the mental level. He explains, “This book is concretised in three fashion editorials that became a healing process for my persona.” The theme feeds from childhood memories and past experiences trying to dive into the perception of one’s physicality in connection to the outer world. On set, the fragmented body, or the common skin, as experienced by the child, according to Anzieu, takes form by the use of fabric and additional elements, such as wires, which creates a connection between the models. The desire is to find new meaning to the family bond through the creative process and an affirmation of the change each subject underwent.
On set, the fragmented body, or the common skin, as experienced by the child, according to Anzieu, takes form by the use of fabric and additional elements, such as wires, which creates a connection between the models. The desire is to find new meaning to the family bond through the creative process and an affirmation of the change each subject underwent.
Art Director and Photographer Mattia Cocci Stylist Luca Pipcitelli Hair Stylist Giulia Visaggio MUA Giulia Visaggio Maria Mustaeva Models Gabriele Servoli Credo Sossou Iuliia Matiukhina
Fashion
COS Charles Cote Valentino mfpen House of Sunny Marianna Guerini Takuya Nishibori Kojak Studio GIACOMO BACCI Missoni PI.ESSS Gucci lessico familiare Prada Tach
‘I think of how my body, back then, felt almost like an extension of them. We were one thing. Everything they would feel, I would feel it. Everything they would learn, I would learn it with them.’
I remember when, during my early childhood, my siblings and I were always together. In particular, during summer, we would spend some time in our seaside home in which everything was extremely simple. We were playing all day together, running over the beach with our skin stained from the sand and burnt from the sun. We were so different from each other, yet so perfectly able to wedge between ourselves. I think of how my body, back then, felt almost like an extension of them. We were one thing. Everything they would feel, I would feel it. Everything they would learn, I would learn it with them.
The process of perceiving my own body as something fragmented, yet something complete around my siblings, became an antithesis to developing the perception of my persona as a whole on its own. When I started the project, I was focusing a lot on how I, as a child, would perceive my body and my ego.
‘The parts of an infant’s body image are felt to have no binding force among themselves and must therefore be held together by an invisible common skin forged inside the domestic field.’
⎯ The Skin-Ego, Didier Anzieu
I found this common skin in my siblings; La Pelle Fantasmatica becomes a metaphor to communicate how much we, as a child, need contact and warmth to develop our ego and persona. It is a binding force that makes our body image something complete. Once this process has taken place, this peculiar skin starts to break again, releasing a new body that would feel complete on its own.
I started to wonder where I could find its first appearance when it started developing and, therefore, when it started to break. That’s how Paolo Mattia Maria Elena was born. It is the name of my brother, my sister and I. I wanted to create a space in which there is a stratification of meaning composed of different childhood memories. I started to imagine and photograph an echo of the things that are not going to happen anymore as a way of celebrating them. A dichotomy between past and present in which objects, places, and garments are quietly diluted.
‘Therefore, highlights the relevance of being distinct individuals, such as being separated from each other. Not in the affirmation of independence but in the autonomy of ourselves. This book is concretised in three fashion editorials that became a healing process for my persona.’
This intimate photographic path is a synonym for a psychic skin full of faded mementos. An occasion to reflect and decode the fraternal relationship with its complexity, placing the attention on the idea of contact, protection, and dialogue. The need and creation of a parenthesis that rotates around our bond and highlights the weft of loving each other. Therefore, highlights the relevance of being distinct individuals, such as being separated from each other. Not in the affirmation of independence but in the autonomy of ourselves. This book is concretised in three fashion editorials that became a healing process for my persona.
Here follows a poem that I wrote at the beginning of the project.
yellow marker
currently tracing the lacrimal bone
quick friction
and the skin stretch
it demands the chord
of the lumpy ink
instinctive eudaemonia
I turn into fog and vanish
nostalgic wind
antithesis of the end
synthesis of the creation
