FASHION TO RECONNECT: When Milan Meets Hong Kong, Sustainability Becomes the New
In the heart of Taikoo Place, ArtisTree has been transformed from 25 November to 24 December 2025 into FASHION TO RECONNECT: A Tale of Two Style Capitals—a quiet manifesto bridging Hong Kong and Italy through sustainable fashion that proves beauty need not cost the earth. This global fashion extravaganza is organised by the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS), City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK), together with Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte in partnership with Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana.
Curated by Italian eco-designer Tiziano Guardini and coordinated by City University of Hong Kong’s Prof. Esterina Nervino, the exhibition unites 16 Italian and 9 Hong Kong-based designers and brands under Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Third Paradise symbol—an emblem of harmony between nature and artifice. Six monumental reinterpretations of the symbol have appeared across the city, from Hong Kong International Airport’s arrival hall to the balcony of Sophia Loren House in Wan Chai, marking the largest single-city activation of Pistoletto’s icon to date.
The garments themselves are the message: runway-worthy pieces crafted from apple leather, ocean plastic, fishing-net yarn, rose-stem fabric, and silk harvested only after the silkworm has become a butterfly. Every label tells a verifiable story—no greenwashing, only evidence-based claims about materials, processes, and supply-chain transparency.
Tiziano Guardini, 2017 Green Carpet Award winner and long-time collaborator with Cittadellarte Fashion B.E.S.T., frames the project as an act of reconnection. “Fashion must become responsibility,” he says. “We must respect the rhythms of nature and return nourishment to the soil when a garment’s life ends—like a leaf.” For him, bringing the exhibition to Asia was never about exporting European sustainability but about listening, collaborating, and co-creating a shared future. He believes Hong Kong, with its speed and openness, is uniquely ready to embrace beauty that is also ethical.
Prof. Esterina Nervino, an Italian academic who has lived in Hong Kong for over 13 years, turned a cross-disciplinary idea into one of the flagship events of Hong Kong Fashion Fest 2025. “If something is labelled sustainable, we must know exactly why,” she insists. Working without a dedicated fashion school, she harnessed CityU’s freedom to connect departments, cultures, and sectors—the same interdisciplinary spirit genuine sustainability demands.
The result is tangible collaboration: Hong Kong designers such as Dorian Ho, Zoie Lam, and Vivienne Tam exhibit alongside Italian maisons and independents including Zegna and Guardini himself. A new memorandum of understanding with Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte ensures the dialogue will continue, while CityU students organise flash mobs, curate sections, and study the exhibition as a live case in Nervino’s new course on the language of sustainability.
Walking through ArtisTree on a quiet afternoon, the usual fashion noise falls away. Visitors—many of them students—pause to read material explanations rather than logos. A recycled-cashmere Zegna jacket hangs beside Zoie Lam’s sculptural forms; Vivienne Tam’s Opera Girl merges with the Third Paradise symbol on digital screens.
Fashion here no longer shouts. It whispers an urgent truth: Milan and Hong Kong, East and West, luxury and responsibility are not opposites—they are threads of the same cloth. When two style capitals weave them together, the rest of the world can follow.
FASHION TO RECONNECT: A Tale of Two Style Capitals exhibition continues at ArtisTree, Taikoo Place until 24 December 2025. Admission is free.
