One recent spring morning, textile painter Zazie Gnecchi Ruscone stepped into the garden that surrounds her atelier, a Modernist-looking cube with large-paned windows, and noticed a cluster of striking-looking irises that had sprung up out of nowhere. ‘These surprises happen all the time here,’ she said later that day, pointing to some blue and green parrots flying from some nearby trees to the 18th-century botanical gardens on the other side of an ochre-coloured wall.
This unexpected flowering is not the only outburst of colour that meets the eye inside this verdant oasis tucked away in a quiet area of Rome’s Trastevere quarter, at the foot of the Janiculum Hill. When she isn’t on her bike picking up her two young boys from school or zooming around the city on various errands, Zazie (who lives round the corner from her studio) retreats into this sunny room filled with jars of paints and rolls of fabric. It is here that we find her during a recent visit, paintbrush in hand, hovering around a large square wooden table on which she has pinned textiles of various shapes and sizes. Each one will become the recipient of her talent for conjuring up dynamic geometries in striking colour combinations. These hand-painted textiles will eventually find their way into people’s homes, gardens and terraces, in the form of curtains, bedspreads, tablecloths and upholstered furniture. ‘The creative process ignited by site-specific commissions sparks my imagination,’ she explains.
Zazie was a child when her mother, Diane De Clercq, and her aunt, Evelyne (the formidable duo behind De Clercq & De Clercq, a Rome-based brand of knitwear and hand-woven, hand-painted fashion and home accessories), set their eyes on what was then a semi-abandoned building-supplies yard. They set about transforming the dilapidated, utilitarian buildings into living quarters, one for each, and a large, shared working area filled with looms, multicoloured threads and other tools of their trade.
‘Growing up in a matriarchy of creative women,’ says Zazie, whose older half-sister is the renowned Rome-based painter Julie Polidoro, ‘has been the defining inspiration of my life.’ As a child, she would accompany her mother to meetings with weavers and knitwear manufacturers in Umbria and other regions. ‘They were all stay-at-home moms,’ she explains. ‘Their crafts became their lifeline, one that gave them some degree of financial independence and a sense of creative accomplishment.’ Similarly, in Zazie’s own family, hard work was a way of life. ‘Boredom was a banned concept,’ she says, recalling how her mother would give her bits and pieces of fabric and paints in place of toys. At ten, she created her very first collection: tiny painted purses that were all the rage among her mother’s friends and acquaintances.
By her early twenties, after studying communication and media at La Sorbonne, Zazie returned to Rome, where she rekindled her passion for textile painting. ‘Time flows gently here, and I find this dolce-vita atmosphere utterly inspiring.’ Her mother, all too happy to encourage her daughter, handed over her own painting studio. ‘People knew me for a while as “the girl who makes cushions”,’ she recalls, pointing to her line of hand-painted cushions of all sizes on various chairs and sofas scattered around her atelier. After an amusing commission to upholster the interiors of an old Renault with her painted textiles, she expanded her craft to include home textiles and a line of bomber jackets, dresses, shirts and trousers, all of them designed and painted by her, which she still does. Another commission she enjoyed was making a series of patterns that were printed on to cotton canvas for an exclusive line of Superga sneakers.
While the daily act of painting one-of-a-kind textiles in her atelier remains the core of her creativity – ‘it is such an enjoyable process’ – Zazie is now producing her own collection of fabrics printed in Como, the renowned capital of luxury textiles and silk printing. This new line allows her to approach larger interior-decoration commissions more speedily while also containing costs for her clients. Having created a line of printed fabric for the outdoors, she will soon be dressing up terraces and gardens.
‘My next challenge,’ says Zazie, who has a penchant for spotting exquisite pieces in flea markets and reupholstering them with her colourful geometries, ‘is to curate the design of a hotel.’ Her brilliantly coloured printed geometries will no doubt play the part of the lion in this project. In the meantime, Zazie appears utterly content where she is now. ‘I cannot think of anything better than spending my time in this atelier painting textiles to my heart’s content.’
Visit zazielab.com and Instagram @zazielab
