Today I would like to talk about dreams. Slow down friends, nothing to do with the strange nocturnal apparitions that only few can remember. No, I mean, really, those things usually are inside the drawer of desires ... and often we are left with no prospect of realization.
Like all boys, I also had dreams. I well remember, for example, that my first dream was to have a family ... a real family. Yes, definitely something not unlike those beautiful pictures that television (even in black and white) cleverly pretending to be true content of reality. Behold, I dreamed of a family style "Eight Is Enough": a set of shapeless human beings bound together by love and solidarity, one of those families where you fight, but then everything comes back better than before. Unfortunately, my divorced and I had to face the obvious that a family I would never have had. At most I would have had to be content to glean anything from affection. Very heartbreaking, you say. Well, yes, it was, but I with the imagination and willpower I was ready to dream more.
Around 18 years when the specter of a world of "big" was becoming an increasingly close, I began to pull out the drawer from the same professional dream: to become a designer (at that time still had a sense of the word) . I imagined that one day, not too far away, I'd pull out my creations directly from the steps of the Teatro Massimo in Palermo.
There was only a small obstacle that separated me from this dream: everything. And when I say everything, I mean to say everything. In fact, after having prepared the dream, about the same time, I also realized that the dreams are not realized by pure chance, and that the road between a dream and its realization consists in the "quality" of the route that you decide to undertaken.
small biography I had read about my favorite designers (Versace, Ferre and Mugler) and the idea that I had made was that I had to attend a graduate school diploma and, therefore, to hope in God ... because of course a boy no knowledge of money and could not have come even to the Strait of Messina.
I'll tell you, the barriers between me and my dream I had them at all diminished, but rather had made a giant poster and I had posted in my brain to fill all the mental space available. I felt that was higher mountain to climb Everest, but I also knew that I would bring youth and enthusiasm even further and so, with a suitcase full of good intentions, whistling as I walked toward my goal.
Twenty years ago, I assure you, there were actually schools that specialize in fashion. Yes, ok, there was the Marangoni, but I imagine that the success could not (and should) depend on a noble school light years away from me. Naive perhaps, but now my thought is the why I'm writing.
Anyway, I enrolled in the only school available: a kind of basement with bars on the windows so gloomy atmosphere to dampen any creative genius. Still, I will tell you, I looked beautiful ... I felt it was a great opportunity for me, something absolutely amazing. In the only room available were old fashion catalogs, some wad of masculine fabrics and nothing more. The course was entirely focused on the design, as if fashion was nothing on it. The teacher, a wonderful forty degree at the Academy of Fine Arts, taught us to draw. That's it. Just this. Another teacher according to him a pattern, but we did think about fit and on the technical elements.
We were in 12. Twelve beautiful boys, all ensnared by the same perspective: get the headlines, breaking into the fashion world, a brand and give a face to our creations. Of these twelve guys I really do not know anything. They are like dead. The only person I remember was me in those same two years of school.
of me remember, for example, the inability to hold a pencil, but I also remember the unbridled passion for what I felt like my world: a world of dream dresses of beautiful women who wore them with innate lightness and elegance. While not with only one textbook, still managed to keep me informed (internet was not even suggested, alas): thumbed through all the magazines I could get my pad, I watched people and their way of dressing, I spent plenty of time to window shop stores. I do not need another.
All of this, that a careless eye might look like the triumph of superficiality, it was really my fashion culture. My perspective on things. Did not take long, I just had to be what nature curious and enthusiastic. I knew that was not enough to become a stylist, but the beginning seemed promising.
One day after class (only to be held Saturday morning), I had the courage to ask for the keys to the school director, which in no way frightened by my request said, "remember, only to close the door firmly when you go on. "
We were twelve, but I had decided to go beyond the classroom. I spent every spare moment in the school. I at that time, as happened later for the next twenty years, worked and studied, but the love and passion for that world was likely to erase all traces of tiredness in me.
Are you wondering what I was doing, everything all alone in that room. Well, quite simply, I created. I was taken off the shelves all the masculine fabrics and let your imagination fly. The hand, unfortunately, continued to be hard, but ran to a thousand fantasy: I imagined beautiful dresses to menswear fabrics (the only ones available) only good for dressing the dead. This did not care. A real creative, as the most brilliant of the chef, creates also a delicacy from simple ingredients (Ratatouille docet). I did it with this tissue. Once I remember that I even fell asleep on the drawing board and design that I woke up stuck in his cheek.
After two years of school, and after all my free time in the past to imagine a bright future and came to the graduation day. My hand was better - nothing to do with that of my comrades who came from art school - but not enough to be able to sell the beauty of my drawings. I felt my legs tremble, your hands sweat to evaporate and the brain. When they gave me the theme of the final exam, I was literally sinking into a steaming dung hill (today they are polite!). result? I was the only one to take the good with the praise.
The days that followed I wrote an ungrammatical CV, sent it to all the great designers and I was waiting impatiently. After a month or more reached two responses: one of Claude Montana and the other for I do not remember who. Obviously, both negative, but the very idea that they had taken the trouble to answer me so much that excites me decide to start, however, to work. Easy to say, not to be seen in Sicily even the shadow of companies. Given the bad habit of disappointing constant demands of work, I opted for migration: 18 hours by train to get to stinking Modena (my aunt). From one point of view the solution is worse than the problem, really, though, something unexpected happened: After two weeks of my arrival in the remote outskirts of Modena, I received a letter from Palermo. A letter that contained another: a call at the Ferre fashion house for an interview.
Thus ends the story. Only the story, because what matters is the meaning of it all: a dream come true.
I did not mean, however, speak to me, I was looking for a pretext to talk to you ... of your dreams. Each of you (I speak especially to those who are preparing to make their own) has understood his goal. Your dream.
Life is not a reality or a transmission in which the cleverest wins (maybe). With this we come to terms. Life is made up of daily, but especially of great sacrifice. All ages, in fact, brings its own difficulties, including that of living in a world that does not recognize us ever. Often, their dream has the characteristic dell'irraggiungibilità and this feeling in us acting in a way unfavorable to us to desist.
The point is, dear friends, that you can never know in advance what will be our destiny, and what, and what will be our success. Also introduced and more affluent people are faced with the same impasse. The success and fortune have no shortcuts. We must, therefore, get down, do everything possible to make the first step towards our dream happen. It is essential to give his soul to projects and our dreams. We must believe ... and you must do so also, and above all, in the darkest moments, that is when all options seem to leave more and more. That we must believe in themselves. Nobody can do it for you.
I do not claim pills can give wisdom to anyone. I'm still too young and perhaps will never become wise enough, but my past is my story ... and what they are today is the product of what I did yesterday.
One thing is however certain: life is ours, and every one of us, and its quality depends on every little action we take today. Nietzsche called it "eternal return".
The timing of yesterday are not those of today. In the face of new opportunities are being created out new cultures, but also new and more troubling uncertainties. Today everything is faster and easier. We are the same as always. If
seek an answer to the question of departure - "How much is a dream?" - Just lose your time. Your dream is worth exactly the value that you decide to give ... and this only depends on what you believe.
