Purple Magazine
— S/S 2012 issue 17
Fiat 500 by Gucci
film by OLIVIER ZAHM
featuring BETONY VERNON
When Gucci and its Creative Director Frida Giannini asked me to do a film about the Fiat 500 that they had customized, I immediately thought of Turin, Fiat’s home base. It’s also the city of my favorite Italian designer and architect, Carlo Mollino. Towards the end of his life, Mollino designed an extra apartment for himself, on the shores of the Po River. He used it at night as a secret studio where he photographed women, and he designed it as his mausoleum, the perfect place for him to rest in peace. This beautiful place still exists, and has been carefully preserved by Fulvio Ferrari, an expert on Mollino’s work. My dream was to film a story there. To me, this film would create a poetic combination of three pillars of Italian design: Fiat, Gucci, and Carlo Mollino.
