Mamma Anna often said to her: ‘If you had a penny for every pencil you consumed, you would be very rich!’. Mitzi Micalef, her daughter, is a petite and gentle woman whose lively gaze exudes a world of magic. Mitzi does not work as an artist, she is one.
Together with the Urban District of Commerce, we met the owner of ‘Mitzi Arte e Moda’ to learn about the history of her business.
Entering the atelier in via Quarenghi you are catapulted into another world, which smells of grand theatres, ethereal principal dancers and the catwalks of the greatest stylists.
She started painting as a child and never stopped: ‘I paint all day, I mix colours and I always try to look beyond’.
‘Maybe’ she tells us ‘it is exactly what a painter does: she sees shapes and colours, she sees beyond and sometimes she dreams. For example, I dreamed of a skirt with flowers tonight and I painted it this morning!’.
Give shape and substance to your dreams and make it a job that you will love forever. This mentality gives us a glimpse into the extraordinary story of Mitzi, who has not ceased believing or striving to achieve her dreams for a single day.
After graduating from Fantoni High School in Bergamo, she enrolled at the Marangoni Institute, a fashion school founded in Milan in 1935 by the tailor Giulio Marangoni. Here, she devoted herself mainly to painting on fabric.
Today the Marangoni Institute has ten schools in eight cities around the world and three different continents. It has become a giant of the promotion of creativity and is recognised as one of the best fashion schools in the world.
On the threshold of her thirties, one day left the house one day for an interview with the maison Gattinoni. She took with her some drawings, some remnants of hand-painted cloth and a piece of fabric that, according to her, had come out really bad.
“After fifteen days, I was working for him. Do you know why? He liked the work that I thought was bad!’ she explains laughing. Since then, she says she has kept that square of fabric as if it were an amulet, her most lucky charm.
Mitzi looks back with satisfaction but also with great lightness. She never talks about her talent (which seems extraordinary to us) but says she owes everything to her good education and to having been capable of patience.
“It happened that I fell or made a mistake. But at that point either you cry, you be a shrimp and go backwards or you start all over again. I am from Bergamo and for me the only option is the last one.’
All skills that have nourished word of mouth among the many designers who after Gattinoni wanted her to work with them, such as Balenciaga, Rocco Barocco or Gianfranco Ferré – who had Naomi Campbell paraded in a dress embellished with Mitzi’s art. But the greatest excitement was, perhaps, working on a stage dress for Carla Fracci, her mum’s idol, also a dancer.
It was always her mother who gave her the courage for each new venture and she was right even when, before opening the boutique, she said to her: ‘Go for it, it will be difficult but you’ll make it’.
Now in the cosy atelier in via Quarenghi, where the stage costume of her favourite dancer is hanging in plain view, Mitzi offers original clothes designed and created by her. They are all unique pieces with elegant fabrics and tulle, with paintings of starry skies, calm seas, snowy landscapes, faces and flowers.
Here you enter a fairytale world, women, brides and all those who have not forgotten their childhood dreams come here for these incredible pieces.