Luca Guadagnino’s recently released romantic drama, Call Me by Your Name, was filmed in a 17th-century mansion in the countryside outside of Milan, features music by Sufjan Stevens, and stars (in addition to Golden Globe–nominated leading men Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer) Dedar fabrics.
It is not the brand’s first appearance on the big screen. Guadagnino’s prior film, I Am Love, starring Tilda Swinton, also featured Dedar products. Call Me by Your Name, set during the summer of 1983 and based on the 2007 novel by André Aciman, follows the love story between a 17-year-old Italian and his father’s American assistant.
Interior designer Violante Visconti di Modrone worked on the set. “I hadn’t done set decorating before,” she told the The New York Times. “And I thought this would be particularly difficult, because the villa was enormous, and mostly empty.” She used archival Dedar fabric prints for the sofas and armchairs as well as the curtains and tablecloths, and she pulled other decorative items, including furniture and paintings, from antique shops and even her father’s home. The walls of the library were covered with a silk brocade Dalie, Papaveri, Tulipani, for example, and the bed canopy uses Print Artwork, with batik patterns and a deep, warm hues. Velvets and cotton satins are found throughout.
Caterina and Raffaele Fabrizio, owners of Dedar, first met the film’s director at the Dedar showroom in Milan. They tell EAL, “He was with a friend, and I remember being struck by his kindness and subtle elegance. Somehow very Italian but at the same time evoking something remote.”
I think [Guadagnino] could find in our collections, and in our sensitivity, what he was looking for: textures, designs, colors that could catalyze and transmit emotions, that could be part of a villa lived in by generations ...
Why was the collaboration the right fit? The Fabrizios explain, “Everything was very natural. He decided to come and look through our collections. ... I think he could find in our collections, and in our sensitivity, what he was looking for: textures, designs, colors that could catalyze and transmit emotions, that could be part of a villa lived in by generations, with a warm atmosphere of something that has always been, coming from the past and from travels of a cultivated family inclusive of different cultures.”
“It was just natural to express how wonderful it would be for us being part of his movie set. The emotional liaison between the spaces and the protagonists and the story of his first movie, I Am Love, had left a strong impression on us. And even the choice of Villa Necchi Campiglio, representing the epitome of Milanese elegance, set of his movie and a place we love and where we decided to shoot our collections of velvets and satins, silk and wool years ago.”
Dedar will appear in Guadagnino’s forthcoming horror movie, Suspiria.
