Queste donne sono splendide.
Eppure la loro bellezza diventa volgare, la loro è un’eleganza sguaiata.
Perché la bellezza delle donne di spettacolo deve ricordare quella delle prostitute di alto bordo dell’Est Europa?

Trucchi pesanti, vestiti a metà tra haute couture e saldi Upim, gioielli come bigiotterie scadenti.
Tutte perfette per certe cene particolari, che si possono anche definire “eleganti”.

On Saturday 19th of February people of Internet are trying to organize some protests in support of Greek people: We are all Greeks.
The leitmotiv is against corrupted governments, mean banks, nazi-Germans and the hideous politics that are killing the innocent Greek people.

The Greek debt crisis is such a complex subject that can allow different approach.
The opinion of these protestors is one of the two easiest.
The other easy one is to say the Greeks are lazy corrupted folks that don’t want to pay for their errors.

I will try to picture a quick history, trying to give a broad point of view on the Greek disaster.
Information comes from two main articles, from the New York Times and from LaVoce, an Italian blog where university economic teachers add opinions and analysis.

In 1997 Greece obtained the organization of 2004 Olympics, a very important occasion to boost economy and international position.
Before that year Greece economy had a very small grow rate (1,7% per year), compared to other Mediterranean countries like Italy, Spain and Portugal.
From 1997 to 2007 the average grow rate was 3,2%: based on public investments paid with borrowed money from financial markets, that dealt easily with Greek government because of the Olympics but also because of the next joining to the Euro Zone.

Now the basic rule of borrowing money is that soon or later (you know when), you have to give it back with interests.
When you get a debts, the freedom of your choices is already limited, because you have an obligations, a serious ties with someone else, in a weak position.

Greek government fakes financial statistics and had hidden agreement with financial institutions (the evil Standard&Poors & co.) to keep low interests on this debts.
The borrowed money was not use to create a strong economy, but was spread over useless projects, corruptions, populistic internal policies. At once, Greece was no more a relatively poor country of South East Europe, but was the blessed paradise of the grey, boring North Europe.
Millions of useless public jobs were created, privates discovered the magic of buying luxury on credit, “from olives to cheese, the main topic of conversation was stock exchange”.

The 2007 arrived, the year in which financial market bubble exploded in North America.
Borrowing money was not a pleasure anymore, and debts came expired. But Greece did not have resources to give back the money used to create fake wealth.

The result of bank bills is the social and civil disaster Greek people are living now.
Since they cannot pay their debts, Greek people have to go back to the wealth standards of 15 years ago.

Is just fault of banks? Banks for sure are on the strong side of the deal. But they did not obliged anyone to take debts.
What are the Greek protestors asking? To keep rights and privilegies that they can’t sustain.
They are not fighting for a better world.

Now let me ask, if a friend of yours would ask you 5.000€, with a regular contract where it’s stated when he will return the amount and with which interest, and then at that day he refuse to give back the amount he used to buy a 20″ television, he insults you because you are a “fucking mean nazi bastard”, what would you do?

This is the quick big picture.
The solutions:
Greece decides not to pay its debts, probably leaving EU and Euro, and from one day to the other people will have really nothing, medicines, foods, all the goods they used to buy on debts. They will have nothing for a long while (no one would borrow money to Greece for like 15/20 years), but they keep their “national sovereignty”.
Greece decides to pay the debts, something can cannot be done by any politicians that in the last 15 years dealt just with corruptions and “fakelaki” (that’s why foreign creditors imposed a non-elected government).
Paying debts will take a long process of institutional and social changes, to adapt to lower wealth status, but also to build a mentality of legality necessary in civilized countries.

The nightmare in Greece is an important example for all the other troubled countries.
Yesterday Mr.Monti decided not to back the 2020 Olympics in Rome.
Thinking about Athens 2004, Italy can stop holding breathe.

On April, Greek citizens will finally vote for their government.
The answer will be chosen soon.

A brief article on this month Monocle is dedicated to Porto, the second largest city of Portugal. Its mayor explains the decisions that allowed the improvement of the city economic and social situation, in particular the redevelopment of the downtown ghetto Baixa with the EU financing aid.
Mr. Rui Fernando da Silva Rios states it very simply: “Better social cohesion was the entire core of the project”.
Allowing restaurants, shops, cafés to get back in the area has created a social nightlife: if citizens invade streets, criminality goes away.

Last week another brief news came from Monza, a rich town North to Milan.
The mayor, Mr. Mariani, decided to refuse the regional aid to complete a series of projects for the city ghetto, Cantalupo area.
Also Mr. Mariani stated it very simply: “This project would only bring more immigrants to the city”.

Parallel lives of very distant universes.

In few hours a lot of people shared this cover.
Time decided to put Mario Monti, Italian prime minister, on the international edition, with an article about his first four months of premiership.
Reactions in Italy were many and different.
But mainly everyone commented the picture, but not the content of the article.
And here the bad part comes.

Mr. Monti does not say anything new, compared to what he used to write in the last 10 years. But before he was nominated prime minister, few citizens knew him. And few citizens were barely interested in his career, work and articles.
He presents the matter very simply. The way Italian society, institution and labour market have been in the last two decades is no more sustainable.
The social and corporative Italian categories have succeeded in every way to avoid modernity, in particular the urge to confront with dynamics and scenarios that have completely changed from the 70′s.
Italy became rich, but refused to open her eyes on the rest of the world, understand it, and try to adapt her place in a continuously changing planet.

Last year, this situation got close to collapse, because financial markets decided not to borrow us money any more to sustain our selfish confort.
And so the “technocratic” Monti government was appointed by the president of the Republic.
Simply, Mr.Monti has to do the dirty job that the entire politic establishment decided to avoid in the last 20 years.
All politicians say it: we didn’t want to do what was necessary and unavoidable, see Mr. Casini.
This content is much important than a bright cover.

In 2013 new political elections will give back government to elected parties.
Does it means we’ll get back to childish ungovernability?

I think that Parliaments and Governments represents perfectly their voters.
In particularly in Italy.

Here we go: Fabio Novembre design talk at the V&A Museum.

Deep breath.
34 minutes.
Breath again.
Good God two parts?!

Ok, let’s watch it.

Peroni Collaborazioni Talks: Fabio Novembre part 1 from Dezeen on Vimeo.

Comments soon, if I survive

How far would you go to produce fashion?
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#Stereotype
#Sexism
#Trite

No, dear American friends, not all Italians thinks that cars and women should be just hot and sexy to satisfy real man’s desires.
And FIAT, we know your commercial targets in the USA are quite f*cked up….

#BigFail Fiat

Ps – just a pair of comparison

And some tips for Fiat to do another successful advertisement? Maybe before do at least a successful one…

Economic Crisis
Social Crisis
Democracy Crisis
Revolution Crisis
Environment Crisis
Ideal Crisis
Identity Crisis

Everything stands still.
But everything is changing.
We can’t have certitude because complex mechanisms are working really fast in every corner of the world.
Many issues seem to get worst, hopelessly.

That’s because we desperately try to stop movement, to hold energy, to keep the “status quo”.

Europe turmoils, from Portugal to Estonia, from United Kingdom to Greece what has been tried to stop in the last 22 years, from the collapse of URSS suddenly exploded.
People of Europe are waiting for someone to protect them, they way of life, their privileges (compared to the rest of the world) and perhaps to increase them. People of Europe don’t ask so much, they just would like to find a work that can allow them a decent welfare for the rest of their life.
But it seems the system is not working anymore.
We are asked to make sacrifice to postpone the day in which we will have to make other sacrifices, and so on.

So probably Europe is on the border of her sliding doors: try to create new system in which people can build welfare on a new system of needs, or slowly fall into the fog of history.

This is an amazing challenge for design:
- organize information, make it accessible and sharable, let receiver manipulate them, avoiding the sophistic approach of present media
- define new process and organization for alternative society, in which parameters of welfare can be based on alternatives than the actual consumerist society

The target: being aware of the future we are already setting up today