(Menabòh) When and how did your love for vintage start?
(Cecilia Cottafavi) My love for vintage was born when I was a child: in August with my parents, uncles, and cousins we made trips to France in order to discover medieval villages and antique shops.
(M) What fascinates you most about the vintage world? Why did you decide to turn it into your job?
(CC) The story behind every object and garment: there’s nothing more fascinating than being able to wear a story. The work was a bit self-created, when I started Maertens I just wanted to communicate my world but over time I discovered that my passion could become my job and so I took this opportunity.
(M) In your bio it says that you bring the past into the future, in which era would you like to live? Why?
(CC) I will be honest: I wouldn’t live any time other than this moment! I am very fascinated by the past, especially since the seventies but I’m aware that the aesthetic imagination of a period does not coincide with reality. For this reason my sentence “I bring the past into the future” finds fulfillment: I want to take from the past the positive elements and bring them in the present, contaminating everything with my contemporaneity.
(M) What would you say to those who have not discovered the world of vintage yet?
(CC) Try! You will not regret it and above all, you will never come back!!
(M) We like to end with the future in mind, asking everyone we interview, “where do personally you see (or hope) the future of fashion headed?”
(CC) This question is beautiful as it is complex. I sincerely hope that the drive to sustainability that we have experienced in recent years can be fulfilled, I am aware that a 100% ethical fashion is a utopia but we must not stop the change.