Colette was an Embroiderer

Born in Brescia in 1971, Francesco Vezzoli studied at Central Saint Martins in London, a renowned school in the fashion industry. It is in this context that he began to use the needle, a tool also linked, in his own words, to his sexual orientation, which he then started to embrace. Gradually, a reflection on the contemporary icon, and later on history, took shape; the addition of tears to his embroidered portraits of public figures served to rectify one of his omissions, since, according to Vezzoli, tears are absent from museums. For him, they are “a ‘coming out’ of some sort—not of sexual orientation, but of emotion, which is even more universal.”