Top Designers Use Food as Fabric

Great creation through successful inspiration is a quality that few people possess. Fulvio Bonavia has both. An award-winning advertising and editorial photographer, Fulvio Bonavia is a true talent who has fulfilled the highest demands of the hungry eye. His work has been honored by Communication Arts, PDN, the Italian Art Directors Club, and the IPA, among others, and Luerzer’s Archive has named Fulvio one of the ‘200 Best Ad Photographers Worldwide’. With the publication of his book ‘A Matter of Taste’ he has achieved the unity of two conflicting worlds throughout time; Food & High Fashion. Both adored and wanted but at the same time forbidden.

A Matter of Taste’ illustrates high end fashion garments and accessories from the world’s most famous designers made from food. The beauty though does not stop there. Through the use of great lighting, illustration, transparency and retouching, these pieces have an untouchable style of their own that project a priceless quality only seen before in exceptional pieces from a museum. Louis Kahn had once said ‘Even a brick wants to be something’. In this case its broccoli, prosciutto, artichoke leaves, a watermelon or even granberies. These are all sources that we take for granted daily and it took a true artist to make us stop and admire what we call the simple things in life. And boy, do we love the customization of these daily 'jewels'.

Broc Bag

Cash-Shoes

Blueberry Burberry

Spaghecklace

Prosciutto Petaled

Radish Bangle

Sardine Silver

Sugar Foot

Melon Head

This book of 'jewels' was noticed by Dasha Zhukova the creator behind GARAGE magazine. From that point on, a collaboration commenced between herself, Fulvio Bonavia and Giovanna Battaglia to create four striking images of high-fashion attire exclusively for the first issue of Garage magazine. The outcome was as exquisite and as talked about as the Taylor – Burton diamond. The attires were priceless: 

Lettuce by Alexander McQueen, 

"I was able to photograph the Alexander McQueen salad dress quite straight.."

Citrus by Prada, 

"We made a mockup of the dress using a transparent mannequin and attached slices of citrus onto part of it. It was not possible to make an entire dress of the fruit slices because the citrus goes bad very quickly, so I shot a number of frames and then composed everything in post."

Anchovies by Moncler, 

"The Moncler concept required a lot of post-production work. I feel post-production is really part of the creative process, and I like to do that work myself. During the retouching, I can easily achieve what I have in mind without any compromise."

Walnuts by Louis Vuitton.

The styling, layout & photography of these pieces portray the essence of these designers as successfully as their brand names. The playful and elegant transparency of the Prada dress is the epitome of style. As Fulvio explains the working process, we understand once more that understated elegance costs time and money.

Bellissimo!