A personal favorite is the incredible Judy Chicago “The Dinner Party” installation.
It is incredible, because she really celebrated all the women in history that others might have forgotten. But it’s also how she realized it, with a dinner table as a monumental piece of art. Normally feminist artists are doing smaller pieces that are more personal, they are not so brave to take up this much space. It was exciting when I met her to collaborate together, because she expresses herself in a monumental way and encourages women to be brave. She also used embroidery as her medium, which is a big part of the women’s expression; there was, at the time, an idea that it was more domestic, but with her it became finally recognized as fine art. It was very inspiring for me and for my work, also with Karishma [Swali, the managing director of the Chanakya School of Craft], to promote this expression like a form of art, because it is a piece of art, and it is also something that you do not realize alone.
The Statue of Liberty features in the collection, but I’m curious about any other favorite New York City landmarks you may have? I just got off the train at Grand Central Station to come meet you, which is one of my favorites.
I grew up with the idea of New York and London, because they are such metropolitan cities. I came for the first time, I think, when I was 18 years old. I remember having a second job to get money for the flight, because it was so expensive, as it is now [laughs], but so much more then. I remember you could even smoke in the plane! So we are speaking about another era. There is this image of me in New York that Rachele [Regini, Chiuri’s daughter] found with this t-shirt with the words “KILLER” on top. I was here on holiday, and I remember that the idea was to do a tour of the United States, but when I arrived I just didn’t want to go anywhere else.
I went to the Statue of Liberty and all the monuments, and it was very different when I came back during my career because we also came here to see fashion. We didn’t have big department stores [in Italy], so we toured those. But I love this city because there is art, fashion, music, it’s another dimension, and you feel immediately welcome. The idea of community is very strong in New York.