Cristina Parodi: “Life begins again, but in Bergamo we cannot forget what we have been through” – Fanpage.it

Cristina Parodi spoke to Fanpage.it about the darkest weeks in Bergamo—the city that adopted her and was hit hardest by the Coronavirus emergency—about her husband Giorgio Gori, and about the kind of work that follows you home. She discusses her pause from the TV world and the fashion dream she wants to start again from now.

There is a veil of sadness and pain in her voice when she talks about Bergamo, now truly her city, and the deafening silence that filled its streets and squares for too many weeks. Cristina Parodi—journalist, host, writer, and now committed to the fashion world with the brand Crida—told Fanpage.it how she experienced the Coronavirus emergency, what her fears were, and how she faced them, all alongside her husband Giorgio Gori, Mayor of the Italian city most affected by the virus. “It’s the first time I’ve seen my city truly on its knees. These have been very difficult months.”

“Working with Cesvi helped keep my mind occupied”

Cristina, who has been involved for years with Cesvi—an NGO operating worldwide for cooperation and development—focused during this period on a fundraiser for the city, which raised 5 million euros used to purchase medical supplies needed to face the emergency. “It kept my mind occupied and engaged in work I felt I had to do and wanted to do. It made me pass this period in a more constructive way. Now, fortunately, we all see the light a bit more. People from Bergamo are very willing, hardworking, and productive; they don’t stop for anything. Just as they were silent in these months of pain, they have already all set to work now—the municipality first—and obviously, for everyone, it’s an uphill battle. But if there are people tough and capable of getting back up, it’s exactly the people of this city, as I have come to know them.”

Beside her husband Giorgio Gori: “A deep and beautiful experience”

The whole family had to deal not only with fears regarding the pandemic but also with Giorgio Gori’s public role. “Giorgio continued to work always, going to the town hall, going out. We were afraid for him, we were afraid for ourselves staying at home. But Giorgio is a person who doesn’t stop for anything, and it’s as if he convinced himself he was invincible.” Being the first citizen of the city most ravaged by this emergency was not easy; it’s a job that you don’t leave outside the front door. “Being beside Giorgio is always a deep and beautiful experience because he is a man who works so much and dedicates himself with incredible self-sacrifice to everything he does, and he does it with a truly tireless passion. In this case, too, I tried to be close to him and comfort him as I could, giving him concrete help through the work I did with Cesvi, which was directed toward the city and the administration. It was exhausting, but it was beautiful to live through this moment together with him—certainly the most difficult one for everyone to face, and absolutely so for a mayor.”

Those painful images of the trucks that will go down in history

The images of the 70 military vehicles carrying the coffins of Covid victims out of Bergamo will remain impressed in memory and certainly in history books. Perhaps there, we all truly understood how helpless and absolutely defenseless one can be in the face of a virus that prevented many from even giving their loved ones a proper burial. “I cried, like everyone. Like all Bergamo people, I believe they did so in silence in their homes, without manifesting the pain too much. People in Bergamo are like that; they are modest about their grief. Those weeks—the darkest ones—passed in an unreal silence. There were only the bells tolling for the dead, the sound of ambulances. But you didn’t hear a single noise; there wasn’t a person around. Those who weren’t here in Bergamo perhaps cannot understand the weight of this silence, of this immobility. There was no singing in the streets or on balconies, as many other cities did—rightly so, to comfort each other. Here, every family in Bergamo, every person I know, had a grief: someone who passed away, a relative in the hospital, a friend fighting against this disease. They were truly difficult weeks.”

Crida, a dream realized

Now, however, Italy is slowly restarting. “Phase 2” has marked the reopening of some activities. And the time has come for Cristina Parodi to return to thinking about her newborn brand Crida, created with her friend Daniela Palazzi. “This project was born as a dream I shared and still share with Daniela for many years—one of the most naturally elegant women I know. Last summer, I had a season more free from television commitments; we told ourselves that if we didn’t do it now, we never would. It seemed right that even at 50, two women could realize their dream. We started working in September—researching fabrics, workers, manufacturing—and by December, our first collection, a small capsule, was ready. We were very proud of what we had done. Then, obviously, in early March, when we were supposed to start the most important month for orders and getting the dresses into shops, everything stopped. Like the whole fashion world, we, as brand-new rookies, suffered a setback, and now we have an uphill road. That said, we are from Bergamo, so we don’t stop—especially since we’ve cultivated this dream for a long time. Certainly, we didn’t choose the best time to start, but that could not have been predicted.”

“Fashion must slow down”

Dresses designed for all women—timeless, made with natural and sustainable Italian fabrics. These are the characteristics of the Crida brand, responding to a need felt now more than ever for less consumerist fashion. “Fashion, like our whole country, will have to change. In our opinion, it must necessarily go in a direction of simplicity, as that genius Giorgio Armani said immediately. Fashion must slow down; it must become more human and return to the rhythm of the seasons. These are the ideas we had in mind when we thought of Crida dresses. They are not a product to be consumed quickly—flashy, to be worn only twice because it bores you after a while. The line is designed for all women like us: who work, do a thousand things, have small children to take to school, or grown children like mine who are already out in the world—she says laughing—who work all day and find themselves having an aperitivo in the evening. They are dresses for women who love to travel and want to move around without having to carry a thousand things to match.”

“I was offered a show, I refused”

Fashion has always been part of her professional path; as a journalist at Tg5, she covered it for many years, and now she has decided to change roles. “I am not a woman obsessed with work and appearing. I did this job out of passion. I was on air daily for decades, but I never had nightmares or anxiety about not doing it anymore. Now I choose the things I like and I can afford to do other things; I am a curious person, I write books. I was offered a show on TV8, but I refused because during this period I wanted to give space to this project that I love so much, created by the two of us. And then I matured and developed an increasingly close collaboration with Cesvi; I became the director of their magazine. These are two things I handle full-time and that I enjoy very much.”

The love for “Made in Italy”

Specifically, 10% of sales will be donated to Cesvi. The proceeds will go toward supporting a project aimed at helping the elderly who need care, meals, and social assistance at home. The brand also intends to be a hymn to Made in Italy. “Long before these times, we named each of our dresses after a city that inspired us. Florence, Taormina, Bari, Rome, Positano. We like the idea of telling their story through images of our beautiful Italy. We need to support our tourism, and we made this choice because we are convinced that Italian fashion is special and unique in the world.”

Source: https://bit.ly/2ZiD4T2