DESIGNER
Born in 1984, Emilia Siano comes from a town near Salerno in the south of Italy. Her artistic career began at a young age, when in her parent’s small workshop she learned the cutting and sewing techniques alongside leather work, a traditional craftsmanship still alive and in use in her area of origins.
Over the years Emilia has chosen to deepen her passion for fashion and design through a course of study in Architecture, started in 2003 at Università la Sapienza in Rome and ended in Milan where she specialised in Accessory Design at the Politecnico. She graduated with an experimental thesis on jewellery, tackling issues such as diversity, disability and design as an additional value. She is currently teaching Art and Technology at secondary schools in Italy, promoting a programme focused on inclusive education, self-production, art therapy and emotional education workshops. At the same time, she devotes herself to personal projects, including her self-made brand Libra. Art, underground music and cinema lover, Emilia has always preferred artistic and musical scenarios opposing mainstream currents, source of great inspiration for her creations. Libra brand originated during her university career, mainly out of a desire to design and experiment in a totally independent way, carried away by a creative flow that goes beyond the fashion industry’s rules. The aim is to carry on with the traditional leather work as well as to deepen the themes tackled during her design studies through the "culture of the project".
PHILOSOPHY
Contamination, provocation, experimentation, research into materials, and attention to detail are the ingredients of the brand. Libra accessories are the object of desire, the "fetish" object that empowers the body: a sort of emotional prosthesis that gives voice to the inner world of freedom, strength and assertion of "Self". Jewellery takes on new meanings, turning its gaze towards contemporary jewellery based on conceptual innovation using non-traditional materials and creating a hybridisation of form and content in a single luxury item.The design of Libra accessories is inspired by women's footwear. The lines are those of the famous Positano sandals - shapes are completely deconstructed in every single component and then assembled to create a "different" product: a jewel. The work of finding and recovery of patterns (or dies) takes place in local master craftsmen’s workshops. A place of brainstorming where Emilia keeps an open dialogue between past and present, a necessary process to keep tradition alive. All products are made of real, naturally tanned leather carefully selected from the best Italian tanneries, emphasising the additional value of the ‘Made in Italy’. Each piece is unique and hand crafted in Italy.