The Piazza Matteotti train station opens its doors to the young creatives of IED Cagliari for a special evening in collaboration with Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI). On Thursday, July 17, the tracks of the Cagliari hub will be the backdrop for the Fashion Show 2025, one of the most important moments in the academic life of IED students, who will present to the public the most significant thesis projects from the three-year program in Fashion Design—the only program in Sardinia to award a first-level academic degree recognized by the Ministry of University and Research.
The 2025 edition has an evocative title, “Waiting Room,” and underlines the bond between IED and the city through the choice of a location with a singularly evocative power : the Cagliari train station, in Piazza Matteotti, where – thanks to the collaboration with RFI – 42 looks will parade to tell the journey of IED students.
"Thursday evening," explains IED Cagliari Director Antonio Lupinu, "is proof that in Sardinia, the public and private sectors can collaborate to create an event that engages the city and the community. This parade is not only the culmination of a three-year training program, but also a tribute to the young people who come to Cagliari from all over Sardinia to study: for them, the station is their first point of arrival and is highly symbolic in their lives as commuters ."
" RFI is implementing an integrated plan where train stations are at the center of a renewal process that transforms them into attractive, high-quality spaces capable of generating social value, while maintaining their fundamental role as hubs for integrated mobility," states Rete Ferroviaria Italiana. "The 'Waiting Room IED Cagliari Fashion Show 2025' event is a concrete example of this transformation, which contributes to making Cagliari station not just a point of departure and arrival, but a vibrant urban space, integrated into the city's social and cultural fabric. This event represents a decisive step towards creating stations that are dynamic centers of culture, art, and inclusion. The goal is for the station to continue to evolve as a vital and sustainable point of reference for the local community."
On Thursday, July 17th, in a unique and extraordinary setting, 14 collections will be presented , the fruit of extensive design and research into the contemporary languages of the body, materials, and forms. The runway will showcase the graduates' reflections on the present and the future, with a recurring theme in many of the collections: travel. Whether understood as a geographical or interior displacement, as a passage, a stage, a departure, or a return.
This is where the concept for the event was born: the Waiting Room as a physical and temporal space, a place of waiting and departure, a profoundly student-centric space, traversed daily by young people filled with dreams and desires. A powerful metaphor that finds its natural setting in the station : a crossroads of lives and trajectories, of intersecting stories, a point of arrival and departure for generations of student commuters.
The parade will take place around the perimeter of the historic locomotive, a place of great visual impact and collective memory, transformed into a catwalk without interfering with regular train traffic. Passengers in transit will thus be able to become unexpected spectators of the show, without experiencing any inconvenience .
The runway showcased collections created by eleven students and three graduates from the July session : Rachele Manconi, Anna Serra, Martina Serra, Cinzia Dessì, Nicola Demontis, Beatrice Campus, Kim Culurgioni, Flavia Chessa, Daniele Farris, Chiara Pani, Miranda Careddu Panu, Marzia Atzori, Michela Pinna, and Beatrice Maria Valentina Meloni. All work was supervised by Fashion Design program coordinators Nicola Frau and Massimo Noli.
In addition to the collections of the students of IED Cagliari, the Fashion Show will feature some of the best thesis projects by students from other locations of the IED group : Laura Calabrò - IED Milan, Eugenio Cauteruccio IED Turin, Sara Rossini IED Florence, Daniele Dargenio IED Rome, Roberto Niutta - Accademia di Como Aldo Galli, Natalia Arroyas IED Madrid, María Bernabeu Sánchez - IED Barcelona, Amaia Aguirre - IED Bilbao, Biatriz Stumbo – IED Brazil.
All collections meet the sustainability criteria inherent in the concept of ethical fashion . The materials used to create the garments are the result of virtuous reuse and recycling processes, respecting the workers involved in the production chain and with the lowest possible environmental impact. In this regard, a key contribution came from partners Errymondo, Italian Converter, and Conceria Rino Mastrotto, who provided over 300 kilos of reused fabrics and materials, which were given new life by the students. The event's tracklist will be curated by Media Design student Lorenzo Pitzalis.
(Unioneonline)
