The Radar: Marco Capaldo

Sylvie Macmillan creates these amazing sculptural candlesticks all out of shells and stones. Sylvie's actually been a collaborator for a while. She’s a talented nail technician and there’s something really magical about her work. I’m excited to see where she’s taking this.

I recently saw the group show “Autodidact” at Almine Rech, which focuses on Brazilian modernist painters Amadeo Luciano Lorenzato, Heitor dos Prazeres, Chico da Silva and Rubem Valentim. Similarly, “Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism,” currently on view at the Royal Academy, is a really beautiful show. I was exposed to some incredible work including a number by self-taught artists, which I always find inspiring.

Hannah Barry Gallery is a favorite of mine. Their current exhibition is “Life Deep in Time” by Sholto Blissett. We recently shot our Spring/Summer 2025 campaign inside Hannah’s gallery space, with new works by the artist Jesse Pollock created for the set. He first cast the sculptures in clay—they're actually all his teeth marks—and then powder coated them in steel and aluminium.

Soft Opening, founded by Antonia Marsh, isn’t far from my studio. Whenever I stop by, it’s always an amazing surprise to see the next project or artist she’s working with.

Alongside the brand 16Arlington, we've been incredibly lucky to also develop a community. A lot of that community is from the art world. During last year’s Frieze London I was invited to curate the exhibition “Memories of the Future,” which was a huge honor. For me, it was important to use that platform to shine light on young British talents such as Henry Curchod, Mike Silva, Remi Ajani, Alexandra Metcalf, Sandra Poulson and Rhea Dillon. That process of meeting artists and visiting their studios and watching them create felt like a very natural connection. As a designer, I'm very attracted to beauty and storytelling, artisan and craft, and they were so kind to allow me to also see the world through their eyes.

George Rouy has been a friend for some time and it was a privilege to work with him on BODYSUIT. The collaboration started at the opening of the group show “Present Tense” at Hauser & Wirth Somerset, where he introduced me to the choreographer Sharon Eyal, who is another artist in my eyes. Then they invited me to their rehearsals at the Pompidou in Paris where we spent three days watching the dancers rehearse over and over. I had my sketch pad, studying their movements and talking with George about the body of work that would sit alongside this. It was a very natural process and there was a mutual trust in what the outcome would be. We didn't want to distract from the subtle movements of the dancers’ bodies, so we created these second skins.

Even though they were often moving as a group, there was something very specific about each dancer that stood out, whether it was a shoulder blade, calf or bicep. So for each dancer, we chose a part of the body to highlight. Something else I noticed during rehearsals was the sweat. There was something incredible about the glistening effect it had on the dancers’ skin. We worked with an artisan who specializes in 3D printing to essentially recreate those sweat droplets, highlighting different areas of the body and creating different gradients to sit slightly under the embroidery. Finally, George went in and worked on top of that to create the movement because we loved the idea of the bodies being present, but almost blurring into the painted background.

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Marco Capaldo, Creative Director of British fashion house 16Arlington, co-founded the brand in 2018 and continues to captivate with his visionary approach to design.

The US Premiere of BODYSUIT takes place at Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles, 20 – 22 February 2025. Find more details here.