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Giovanni Corabi

The Rao family interprets the new Gucci Bambino collection

The editorial shot by Giovanni Corabi in Sardinia is a hymn to freedom and the beauty of sharing

Discover the children’s collection at Gucci.com

Giovanni Corabi

Gucci launches the Bambino Collection.

A hymn to freedom of expression, to the vibrant beauty of colors and textures that mix to create fabulous looks, in the true sense of the word. There is something magical about the soft, natural fabrics that perfectly suit the wearer, children ready to go on the hunt for dreams, to see something that isn't there.

For this occasion, photographer Giovanni Corabi flew to Sardinia to shoot exceptional models: the members of the Rao family.

A family that was born from a chance encounter between two strangers at Polimoda in Florence. It sounds like the beginning of a romantic script, one of those films that tell of sliding doors and predestination, where the protagonists chase each other through space and time. But sometimes reality exceeds even the imagination, as the head of the family, Sergio Rao, reveals: "He gives a lecture on Japanese fashion through Notebook on Cities and Clothes, the film by Wim Wenders with Yohji Yamamoto that faces the eternal challenge of safeguarding one's own originality, without falling into repetition. She is one of the students in the postgraduate Master's course who disappears from the lecture hall at the end of class. Three months to find her. Twenty-six minutes to decide to move in together. In the social world we are The Family Avenue, in the real world we are the Rao Cabrera family. In both we are two parents, Maga and Sergio and our six children, Noah, Kai, Anouk, Til, Uma and Ryo."

Who better than them to interpret the new Gucci Bambino collection?

The Rao family is an ever-evolving constellation, in which each planet plays a unique and irreplaceable role.

We asked Sergio Rao a few questions to learn more about their story.

What are the elements that make you feel like family?

"Sharing. Sharing of space, experiences, values and time.

Sharing generates participation and refines "complicity" in communication.

It's not an abstract concept, on the contrary, sharing is extremely concrete and achieving it requires time. A lot, and it is also for this reason that for our children we have chosen the reduced time school attendance".

Discover the children’s collection at Gucci.com

Giovanni Corabi

Six children is a number that speaks of the future. Have you always wanted a large family?

"Six children is a number that speaks, and often loudly, to the present, fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, including public holidays. We live our daily lives to the fullest, our time, we are the antithesis of planning. We are a jazz jam session, not a chamber orchestra. The thought of having a large family never even crossed my mind. It simply wasn't an option. A week after we met, Maga and I wondered if we could imagine ourselves with children. "How many?" I asked her, "Four," she replied. I was forty-five, and then it got a little out of hand." 

Discover the children’s collection at Gucci.com

Giovanni Corabi

 What are your kids' wishes for the future?

"One above all: that they may always believe in the beauty of their dreams. I'm not saying that I wish for them to realize their dreams, but that they believe in them and continue to do so throughout their lives, a bit like in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Little Prince - 'Let your dreams devour your life so that life does not devour your dreams.'" 

Discover the children’s collection at Gucci.com

Giovanni Corabi

What values would you like to pass on to them?

"The value and meaning of Beauty. The original and profound beauty that you can only appreciate if you are accompanied and educated to discover it. The beauty of the visible and the invisible. The beauty that makes a piece of wood your favorite toy, that makes you call home a structure with a roof and that leaves you speechless while you look at the sea. That of a spontaneous smile that transforms an unknown person into your life companion.

Beauty has an extraordinary strength, it has a deep sacredness that imposes a great respect for it".

Discover the children’s collection at Gucci.com

Giovanni Corabi

How many times can you reinvent yourself in your life?

"Definitely a number of times, but not an infinite number. Reinventing takes time. Building takes time. Both require great energy and passion, but also the awareness to accept a certain level of risk. Time is a boundary that we cannot move but we can increase its "specific weight" by filling it with content of greater completeness."

Discover the children’s collection at Gucci.com

Giovanni Corabi

You are used to traveling all over the world and, at the same time, you have chosen Sardinia as your home. It seems like a dichotomous choice between openness and isolation. Is it so? Or is there actually no real contradiction?

"Travel and displacement in general are a recurring component of our experience as individuals, first, and as a family, later. I spent seventeen years outside of Italy, in the United States, Shanghai in China and Tokyo in Japan. Maga has lived in Caracas, New York, and Barcelona. We met in Florence and a few months later moved to Bonaire, a small Dutch island in the Caribbean Sea, before returning to Italy two years later for the birth of Noah, our firstborn.

Traveling, even today, continues to be a fundamental part of our family and for us as parents it is the best educational and training tool we can offer our children. Those who travel learn to change and evolve their thinking, and even their lives. The traveler, unlike the tourist, when he leaves, leaves his beliefs at home to return with new ones, the result of the richness of his experience. We try to educate our children to be travelers and not tourists.

The decision to choose Sardinia as a home matured eleven years ago and was instinctive but intimately profound. Contrary to what it may seem, changing our experience of life in large metropolises with that of a town of 168 inhabitants was a choice - and a declaration - of openness and not isolation.

It is infinitely easier to feel isolated in Shanghai with its twenty-six million inhabitants than it is to feel isolated in this splendidly authentic corner of Gallura's land.

Discover the children’s collection at Gucci.com

Giovanni Corabi

You live in a place where the contact with nature is very strong, where the passage of time is marked by the succession of seasons in a more evident way. Why this choice?

"The favorable climatic conditions of the island with often mild temperatures and a short winter season, the strong presence and constant contact with nature and its elements, had a major weight in our choice to move to live in this part of Sardinia where wind and sea are the masters of the house. We have learned to know and appreciate the Mistral and the Ponente as only those who are born or live here know how to do.

The almost always clear air, the scarce number of disturbances and a fresh breeze that mitigates even the most torrid summer days, are the gift of the strong Mistral wind, which comes from the lower Rhone Valley in France, but is also the "engine" of some of our favorite toys, such as the sport sailing dinghy and windsurfing.

Til, at the age of eight, takes to the water with his mates and his windsurf three days a week all year round. We are well aware that this strong and ongoing relationship with nature is a rare privilege."

Discover the children’s collection at Gucci.com

Giovanni Corabi

Discover the children’s collection at Gucci.com

Giovanni Corabi

Discover the children’s collection at Gucci.com

Giovanni Corabi

In La luna e i falò Cesare Pavese writes "A country is necessary, if only for the sake of leaving". After having traveled the world, the protagonist of the novel returns to his land of origin. For those who are accustomed to traveling, how does the sense of belonging manifest itself? What is the value of one's roots? And that of embracing different cultures?

"Maga and I grew up in family and social contexts that were geographically and temporally distant (measured in over 8,000 km and about twenty years) where the sense of belonging is extraordinarily strong and the value of roots and history is a priceless and inalienable family heritage.

A value that we are committed to protecting as best we can in order to pass it on to our children with the help of those who, even today, are its custodians.

We parents represent the contemporary and the everyday for our children, but the most beautiful stories, the words that remain etched in the memory, and the best cake, are always those of the grandmother.

They, the grandparents, are the ones who carry the roots and the poetry, and for this reason we often involve them in the activities of our family and we willingly comply with the request of our children to want to spend an afternoon or night at their house.

The roots of being, if healthy, are never a constraint but a tool for growth. They absorb knowledge, they are nourished by the comparison and the encounter with different cultures, diversity that the "plant" transforms into sap, making the tree even more luxuriant.

About ten years ago, on the occasion of the birth of Kai and Anouk, our twins, a dear Taiwanese friend, quoting a proverb, told me: "Sergio, there are only two things we have to leave as an inheritance to our children: roots and wings"".

Discover the children’s collection at Gucci.com

Giovanni Corabi

Discover the children’s collection at Gucci.com

Giovanni Corabi

What is your relationship with fashion?

"Like a surfer lives the relationship with the wave. You start observing it from the moment it forms, you go towards it and decide to ride it, exploiting all its strength and energy to express yourself at your best on the board. A good surfer knows how to wait, he lets dozens of waves pass before choosing his own. A flat sea with no waves soon becomes boring for a surfer".

Discover the children’s collection at Gucci.com

Giovanni Corabi

What fascinates you about Gucci?

"The fashion universe has been our profession and the driving force behind our meeting. Today it is pure passion. This experience gives us a slightly different perspective than that of a normal external observer. We are fascinated by Marco Bizzarri's extraordinary intuition, rare ability to listen and vision; we are fascinated to see Alessandro Michele not as a stylist but as one of the most brilliant writers of fairy tales. Their interpretative genius in narrating Gucci is, in my opinion, the best answer to how to maintain one's identity without being repetitive.

The many ethical, social, and environmental commitments made, such as those contained in Equilibrium, are permeated to the depths of creating a new widespread corporate culture where respect and inclusion are central. In this vision Gucci is an undisputed beacon, a model of inspiration and reference for the industry in our country."

Discover the children’s collection at Gucci.com

Giovanni Corabi

Discover the children’s collection at Gucci.com

Giovanni Corabi

Team credits

Photographer - Giovanni Corabi

Art Direction - Alessia Glaviano

Stylist - Silvia Pescia

Hair & MUA - Alemka Krupic