Vespa, 1993

In 1993, Max Mara invited eighteen artists to reinterpret its iconic coat as part of the Art & Fashion project, published in Donna. International Fashion Magazine (no. 10, Edimoda, Milan, October 1993), with an essay by Angela Vettese.

Umberto Cavenago’s contribution focuses on a seemingly minor detail: the Vespa’s windscreen.

Since the 1960s, this accessory had been used primarily by those who made the daily commute to work every morning, even in winter. It was not a design feature, but a means of protection against the cold, rain and wind. It was a symbol of necessary, everyday mobility, often associated with the working class.

Featured on this vehicle is a camel-coloured Max Mara coat, one of the emblems of Italian elegance. The soft fabric, the beige colour and the symbolic value of the garment belong to a world a far cry from that evoked by an old Vespa used to reach the factory in the early hours of the morning.

The intervention, however, is not limited to covering the windscreen. Almost with a stubbornly functional logic, the coat is also used to create a seat cover. Whilst the windscreen protects the body from the wind, the seat cover promises to shield even the most direct point of contact between the worker and the vehicle from the cold. Luxury thus extends to its furthest possible consequence: warming the worker’s bottom on the journey to the factory.

It is precisely this apparent functional coherence that makes the work paradoxical. The coat continues to fulfil its protective function, but does so in the least predictable of contexts, transforming a symbol of exclusivity into an accessory for a popular vehicle such as an old Vespa.

The work ridicules neither luxury nor labour. It simply forces them to coexist within the same object, demonstrating just how fragile social meanings are. Simply moving a coat from a human body to a Vespa is enough to radically alter its symbolic value: what was once an emblem of prestige becomes an unlikely source of comfort for those braving the cold of dawn before entering the factory.