ELISA GIORDANO FROM ENGINEERING TO FASHION PASSING THROUGH NEPAL
di Alessia Castelli
From an early age, she spent long periods in the United States with her family, and this certainly helped her to open up to the world, to new cultures and ethnic groups. The long summers in Los Angeles will give her that international openness that will be precious and useful in the world of work. She began as an engineer and taught at university, approaching the world of alternative energy and in particular photovoltaic energy, riding the boom of the golden years in Italy, designing large fields in Puglia and Sicily.
His life changed radically after a bad accident with his father and his subsequent coma. The serious loss will make her reflect on her life and what she really wants to do. She gets married giving birth to two children, Estella and Ettore Carlo. At the age of 29, she starts her adventure in the fashion world: thanks to the recommendation of a friend, she has the great opportunity to start a collaboration with the YSL Maison in Paris, and she stays there for 5 years, but in the meantime, she creates the knitwear line for children from 0 to 24 months, inspired by her children. Shortly thereafter, he felt the desire to return to Turin to be closer to his family and to dedicate himself completely to his women’s line, thus creating what has become his flagship: IRREPLACEABLE. The term means irreplaceable, in fact, in the philosophy of the designer, each garment is unique and irreplaceable. The yarn used most is noble cashmere, and the style encloses (by Elisa’s definition) a mix of glam, rock and sensuality. These three important cities, Turin, Los Angeles and Paris, in fact, are the strong points of each of her collections.
A collaboration with a Nepalese company in Kathmandu, a producer of high-quality cashmere, was born, and the relationship will be consolidated when Giordano, after the terrible earthquake of 2015, will work with volunteers and teams of engineers to rebuild houses, schools, hospitals… helping to restore dignity to a country in serious difficulty.The last brainstorming between engineers and volunteers was a year ago, Seaming and Yellow Cross were in Nepal for months while there were still shakes and the recovery was prolonged. Elisa is very sensitive to social issues and is often a testimonial for awareness campaigns. Despite the really delicate period of fashion and the whole industry, she is increasingly convinced that differentiating herself, using excellent materials and creating a special relationship with her clients is the only way out of this crisis.Also, she firmly believes that having a close-knit team and playing as a team was the trump card for her; in fact, she has excellent collaborators. Unfortunately, only 13% of women under 35 are still able to emerge today, even though things seem to be getting better. Having “built” herself, following her own passions, despite the countless difficulties, makes the 36-year-old woman from Turin an excellent example for young entrepreneurs, Stylist, engineer, philanthropist who struggles every day to transmit to her children and her collaborators the love for what she believes in and to follow her passions without giving in to difficulties, this is Elisa Giordano.
