"Clothing is the first thing the audience reads. Before any movement, a silhouette or a fabric already tells you who she is."
A short interview with Mari Aianadi on fashion theater
M: "Traditional fashion shows are transactional. The audience watches, but they don’t feel. Collections are seen, but rarely remembered. Fashion Theatre changes that. We don’t just showcase a collection. We give it a soul.
In traditional theatre, the costume serves an existing script. In Fashion Theatre, garment, body, space and emotion are created together.
Fashion becomes a medium for me to explore emotional and cultural narratives that go beyond fashion. Garments become a bridge to express the emotions of the human being. They also become a bridge for the audience to connect with the piece and its experience.
For example, in my previous Fashion Theatre shows at CHAUSSEE 36 Photography during the berlin fashion week , we explored self-transformation, inherited roles and family trauma. at Studio DB, we explored a woman’s journey through pain into the light. These are not fashion themes. They are human ones, and the clothes carry them."
What role does clothing play in your performances?
M: "Clothing is the first thing the audience reads. Before any movement, a silhouette or a fabric already tells you who she is.
I work with designers, so every piece is chosen for how it moves as well as how it looks. A sleeve becomes a gesture. A hard corset can show vulnerability. The collection becomes part of the narrative. It is not just displayed, it is felt."
How do fashion and performance come together in your creative process?
M: "It goes both ways. I work with a five-layer artistic system that I created: storytelling formula, emotional narrative, movement language, cultural narrative and world-building.
Every show begins with emotional truth. Then the designers’ work shapes each layer. Their materials and shapes give me movement I would never invent alone. Sometimes a concept guides the choice of pieces. Sometimes a single garment changes the whole direction of the show. For me, everything we touch transforms."
Your description of the upcoming performance on 24th October reads: “Over one performance, designers’ looks become her costumes, the runway becomes her stage, and the question becomes yours.” Could you give us a little preview of what this means? How do designers’ looks transform into costumes?
M: "Le Glamour is a Fashion Theatre show created for the one-year anniversary of Studio 55. This time I collaborated with Studio 55, a creative space in Berlin dedicated to promoting emerging artists and designers. Founded in 2025 from a collaboration between Berlin and Milan, it brings together fashion, art and music. It gives independent creatives a platform to present their work, experiment and connect with new audiences. Our partners for the show are PWC Milano, Snake Garden and Kante.
The show is a story about fame and what fame costs. It follows one woman who has built a persona for the world to see: famous, seductive, chic and effortlessly cool. Behind the glamour there is another woman, and the show asks who she is when no one is watching.
Each designer brings a complete look that stands on its own. In the show, each look becomes part of her story. Some are the personas built for the public. Some are reflections of her that take her place. One is a structure that belongs to everyone but her. Only one outfit is truly hers, and it is the one no one was meant to see.
The helpers dress her piece by piece, so the audience watches a public self being assembled. A look stops being something to admire. It becomes a mask, a role or a weight. Because the designers’ work carries the emotion, the clothes tell the story as much as the performers do.
The runway becomes her stage. The audience sits close, and the question is handed to them: What is glamour hiding? And who are we, when no one is watching?"